Bound coherence for minimum distance computations

Minimum distance computations on complex geometry commonly employ hierarchies of bounding volumes that are pruned through establishment of upper and lower bounds. In this paper we describe a novel time coherence scheme which utilizes coherence on these bounds, rather than coherence derived from the geometry of the bounding volumes or from the geometry of the underlying model. This method is thus independent of the bounding volume and model representations. In tests, we find using this approach can more than double the speed of a noncoherent approach.