Agate, MarkGrimsdale, Richard L.Lister, Paul F.Richard Grimsdale and Wolfgang Strasser2014-02-062014-02-061989ISBN 3-540-53473-31727-3471https://doi.org/10.2312/EGGH/EGGH89/061-073An algorithm is presented for rapid traversal of octree data structures, in order to enhance the speed of ray tracing for scenes of high complexity. At each level of the octree, the algorithm generates the addresses of child voxels in the order they are penetrated by the ray. This requires only a few arithmetic operations and simple logical operations. A depth-first search of the tree is used to yield the first terminal voxel hit by the ray, thus hidden objects are not processed. The algorithm is designed specifically for implementation as HERO: A Hardware Enhancer for Ray-tracing Octrees.