A method includes receiving at a master processing element primitive data that includes properties of a primitive. The method includes partially traversing a spatial data structure that represents a three-dimensional image to identify an internal node of the spatial data structure. The internal node represents a portion of the three-dimensional image. The method also includes selecting a slave processing element from a plurality of slave processing elements. The selected processing element is associated with the internal node. The method further includes sending the primitive data to the selected slave processing element to traverse a portion of the spatial data structure to identify a leaf node of the spatial data structure.