gDist: Efficient Distance Computation between 3D Meshes on GPU

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.