gDist: Efficient Distance Computation between 3D Meshes on GPU

TL;DR

gDist is a GPU-optimized algorithm that computes maximum and minimum distances between large 3D meshes extremely quickly, enabling real-time applications in robotics, CAD, and VR/AR.

Contribution

This work introduces a highly parallel GPU algorithm for fast distance computation between large 3D meshes, outperforming prior CPU and GPU methods.

Findings

Computes distances for meshes with over 15 million triangles in under 0.4 ms.

Achieves significant speedups over previous algorithms on NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090.

Maintains high performance even in challenging scenarios.

Abstract

Computing maximum/minimum distances between 3D meshes is crucial for various applications, i.e., robotics, CAD, VR/AR, etc. In this work, we introduce a highly parallel algorithm (gDist) optimized for Graphics Processing Units (GPUs), which is capable of computing the distance between two meshes with over 15 million triangles in less than 0.4 milliseconds (Fig. 1). By testing on benchmarks with varying characteristics, the algorithm achieves remarkable speedups over prior CPU-based and GPU-based algorithms on a commodity GPU (NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090). Notably, the algorithm consistently maintains high-speed performance, even in challenging scenarios that pose difficulties for prior algorithms.