2025/11/19 by Gyurgyik, Christophe, Root, Alexander J, Kjolstad, Fredrik · 1 citation
Computer Science · #Advanced Data Storage Technologies #Bounding overwatch #Bounding volume #Compiler #Computer Graphics and Visualization Techniques #Data structure #FOS: Computer and information sciences #Parallel Computing and Optimization Techniques #Programming Languages (cs.PL) #Tracing #Traverse #Tree (set theory) #Tree traversal #Volume (thermodynamics)
paper · open access · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2511.15028
published in arXiv (Cornell University) (Cornell University)
openalex publication_date 2025/11/19 · openalex created_date 2025/11/23 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Bounding volume hierarchies are ubiquitous acceleration structures in graphics, scientific computing, and data analytics. Their performance depends critically on data layout choices that affect cache utilization, memory bandwidth, and vectorization -- increasingly dominant factors in modern computing. Yet, in most programming systems, these layout choices are hopelessly entangled with the traversal logic. This entanglement prevents developers from independently optimizing data layouts and algorithms across different contexts, perpetuating a false dichotomy between performance and portability. We introduce Scion, a domain-specific language and compiler for specifying the data layouts of bounding volume hierarchies independent of tree traversal algorithms. We show that Scion can express a broad spectrum of layout optimizations used in high-performance computing while remaining architecture-agnostic. We demonstrate empirically that Pareto-optimal layouts (along performance and memory footprint axes) vary across algorithms, architectures, and workload characteristics. Through systematic design exploration, we also identify a novel ray tracing layout that combines optimization techniques from prior work, achieving Pareto-optimality across diverse architectures and scenes.