MULTIPLE PROCESSOR VISIBILITY SEARCH SYSTEM AND METHOD

A system and method for performing visible object determination based upon a dual search of a cone hierarchy and a bound hierarchy performed by multiple processors. Each processor is configured to read a (global and/or local) problem queue to access a bound-cone pair. The bound-cone pair points to a bound in the bound hierarchy and a cone in the cone hierarchy. The processor computes a bound-cone distance between the bound and the cone, and compares the bound-cone distance to a visibility distance associated with the cone. If the bound-cone distance is smaller than the visibility distance, the processor may write two or more refined bound-cone pairs corresponding to a refinement of the original pair to the global or local problem queue. When the processor detects a leaf bound and a leaf cone, it updates a nearest object pointer and the visibility distance associated with the leaf cone.