# yt.utilities.lib.bounding_volume_hierarchy module¶

class yt.utilities.lib.bounding_volume_hierarchy.BVH

Bases: object

This class implements a bounding volume hierarchy (BVH), a spatial acceleration structure for fast ray-tracing. A BVH is like a kd-tree, except that instead of partitioning the volume of the parent to create the children, we partition the primitives themselves into ‘left’ or ‘right’ sub-trees. The bounding volume for a node is then determined by computing the bounding volume of the primitives that belong to it. This allows us to quickly discard primitives that are not close to intersecting a given ray.

This class is currently used to provide software 3D rendering support for finite element datasets. For 1st-order meshes, every element of the mesh is triangulated, and this set of triangles forms the primitives that will be used for the ray-trace. The BVH can then quickly determine which element is hit by each ray associated with the image plane, and the appropriate interpolation can be performed to sample the finite element solution at that hit position.

Currently, 2nd-order meshes are only supported for 20-node hexahedral elements. There, the primitive type is a bi-quadratic patch instead of a triangle, and each intersection involves computing a Newton-Raphson solve.

See yt/utilities/lib/primitives.pyx for the definitions of both of these primitive types.

class yt.utilities.lib.bounding_volume_hierarchy.BVHMeshSampler
acenter
aimage
aimage_used
amesh_lines
ax_vec
ay_vec
azbuffer
ensure_code_unit_params()
lens_type
yt.utilities.lib.bounding_volume_hierarchy.test_ray_trace()