OptiX

TLDR

OptiX is a programmable ray‑tracing engine for NVIDIA GPUs and other parallel architectures that leverages the insight that most ray‑tracing algorithms can be expressed with a small set of programmable operations. OptiX’s core is a domain‑specific JIT compiler that builds custom ray‑tracing kernels from user‑supplied programs for ray generation, shading, intersection, and traversal, and it offers a single‑ray programming model with recursion and dynamic dispatch akin to virtual functions. OptiX supports a wide range of ray‑tracing applications—from interactive and offline rendering to collision detection, AI queries, and scientific simulations—and delivers high performance via a compact object model and ray‑tracing‑specific compiler optimizations.

Abstract

The NVIDIA® OptiX™ ray tracing engine is a programmable system designed for NVIDIA GPUs and other highly parallel architectures. The OptiX engine builds on the key observation that most ray tracing algorithms can be implemented using a small set of programmable operations. Consequently, the core of OptiX is a domain-specific just-in-time compiler that generates custom ray tracing kernels by combining user-supplied programs for ray generation, material shading, object intersection, and scene traversal. This enables the implementation of a highly diverse set of ray tracing-based algorithms and applications, including interactive rendering, offline rendering, collision detection systems, artificial intelligence queries, and scientific simulations such as sound propagation. OptiX achieves high performance through a compact object model and application of several ray tracing-specific compiler optimizations. For ease of use it exposes a single-ray programming model with full support for recursion and a dynamic dispatch mechanism similar to virtual function calls.