Ray tracing infinite voxel worlds in real-time

Abstract

Real-time ray tracing has become increasingly practical on consumer hardware, yet rendering large-scale worlds remain a challenge. This thesis investiages whether it is possible to design and implement a voxel-based ray tracer that can render seemingly infinite terrain at sub-pixel voxel resolution in real-time. We introduce a rendering engine built around a grid of Sparse Voxel Octrees (SVOs), enabling efficient traversal of large voxel scenes through ray marching. This is combined with a dynamic level-of-detail system that limits octree resolution based on distance from the camera, allowing distant regions to be represented at coarser resolutions. We evaluate the system through three benchmark setups: a static setup, a moving camera setup and a infinite terrain setup. Results show that the renderer achieves real-time performance for sub-pixel resolutions in the non-infinite scenes. With infinite terrain, sub-pixel resolutions are also possible but achieving infinite terrain when the camera is meters away from the terrain is not currently possible. Overall, this work demonstrates that real-time ray tracing of high-resolution voxel worlds is feasible and offers a foundation for future voxel-based rendering engines capable of supporting large, dynamic, and visually detailed environments.