Parallel kd-Tree Construction on the GPU with an Adaptive Split and Sort Strategy

Abstract

We introduce a parallel kd-tree construction method for 3-dimensional points on a GPU which employs a sorting algorithm that maintains high parallelism throughout construction. Typically, large arrays in the upper levels of a kd-tree do not yield high performance when computing each node in one thread. Conversely, small arrays in the lower levels of the tree do not benefit from typical parallel sorts. To address these issues, the proposed sorting approach uses a modified parallel sort on the upper levels before switching to basic parallelization on the lower levels. Our work focuses on 3D point registration and our results indicate that a speed gain by a factor of 100 can be achieved in comparison to a naive parallel algorithm for a typical scene.