Advanced Micro Devices Corporation

Webtv Networks, Inc.

Silicon Graphics, Incorporated

Other

Cagent Technologies, Inc.

Adrian Sfarti

Adam Malamy

Mei-Chi M Liu

Paolo Enrique Sabella

Nicholas Robert Baker

Gunawan Ali-Santosa

Robert Laker

Adam C Malamy

Padma Parthasarathy

Steven Dines

Nicholas M Baker

Achim Strupat

Robert William Laker

Edouard Landau

Randy Goettsch

Donald M Gray

Paul Paternoster

Victor Tirva

Andrew D Daniel

Nick Baker

John Cumming

A system and method for pipelining three-dimensional graphical data in which two-dimensional renderings of objects are created from polygon data by transforming and lighting each polygonal vertex and then connecting the vertices.

System and method for organizing data for a 3-dimensional graphics pipeline

A graphics rendering system creates an image based on objects constructed of polygonal primitives, which can generate the perception of three-dimensional objects displayed on a two-dimensional display device. An anti-aliasing operation is applied to silhouette edges of the objects, which are the edges of primitives which are displayed at the perimeter of an object. A silhouette edge can be identified by determining how many times an edge is rendered, with each instance of the rendering of an edge corresponding to the rendering of a primitive that adjoins the edge. An edge that is rendered exactly once is interpreted as a silhouette edge. An example of a silhouette edge is an edge that adjoins one triangular primitive that is viewable and another triangular primitive that is hidden from view by other primitives. Another technique for identifying a silhouette edge can be applied to closed objects by determining whether a first primitive adjoining an edge is hidden from view by other primitives and a second primitive also adjoining the edge is viewable. Once the silhouette edges are identified, the anti-aliasing operation is applied thereto.

Identifying silhouette edges of objects to apply anti-aliasing

A method and system for simulating motion of a polygon on a display screen. The polygon may be included in a set of polygons used to model a three-dimensional object. The position of the polygon is defined by vertices tracked in a subpixel coordinate system existing in a computer-readable medium. The subpixel coordinates of the vertices are used to identify the pixels on the display screen having coordinates that correspond to subpixel coordinates lying within or, optionally, at the boundary of the polygon. The identified pixels are those that are to be lighted on the display screen to generate the image of the polygon. The display properties of the lighted pixels are selected by interpolation based on defined pixel display parameters assigned to the vertices of the triangle. As motion of the polygon is tracked in the subpixel coordinate system, the corresponding display on the display screen is repeatedly adjusted. The method of identifying and interpolating the display parameters of the pixels using the subpixel coordinate system provides the appearance of smooth polygon motion.

System and method for adjusting pixel parameters by subpixel positioning

Performing graphics rendering without the computational expense of hither plane clipping and with only a minimum of display image clipping. Where a three dimensional polygon crosses to both sides of a hither plane, any vertices on the back side of the hither plane are translated to the hither plane, producing polygons which occupy only the area in front of the hither plane. A display image memory, from which display images are generated, is located within a larger guard memory such that many images which would need to be clipped to fit in the display image memory may be written to the guard memory without clipping.

Guard region and hither plane vertex modification for graphics rendering

A graphics rendering system creates an image based on objects constructed of polygonal primitives. Aliasing effects in the image are reduced by applying an anti-aliasing scheme to the areas of the image representing silhouette edges of the objects. The silhouette edges are anti-aliased by creating anti-aliasing primitives which vary in opacity. These anti-aliasing primitives are joined to the silhouetted edges, and create a region in the image where the objects appear to blend into the background.

Object-based anti-aliasing

A system and method of selecting a level of detail in a texture-mapping system. Pixels are processed in a zig-zag traversal pattern to allow determination of vertical and horizontal change values in texture map coordinates. In this manner, accurate level of detail selection is achieved without unduly reducing efficiency or throughput of the graphics system.

System and method of selecting level of detail in texture mapping

A system and method of rendering polygons in graphics system using incremental iterative addition in place of complex division operations. A setup engine provides relevant values to edge and span walk modules for rapid processing and rendering of polygon characteristics including material values. Characteristic functions are iterated with respect to polygon area and along individual spans to derive values for each pixel therein.

Polygon rendering method and system with dedicated setup engine

A graphics system includes triangle-engine for real-time rendering into a displayable frame-buffer of image data derived from vertex-based deferred instructions. The system uses homogeneity values (1/w values) for z-buffer-like occlusion mapping as well as for texture mapping. Depth resolution is enhanced for both occlusion mapping and texture mapping by representing (1/w), (u/w) and (v/w) values in a block-fixed format.

Inverse Z-buffer and video display system having list-based control

A system and method for controlling a real-time rendering engine includes a control program for defining in regions of system memory a block header and a list of flow-control instructions.

Controlling a real-time rendering engine using a list-based control

A method and apparatus for drawing at least a two pixel wide antialiased line is described in which the apparatus utilizes an interpolator, having a set up unit and an iterator unit, and a blender. The set up unit determines various parameters of the line to be drawn and selects a pair of pixels adjacent to and straddling an idealized line representing the line to be drawn. The iterator unit determines the coverages of the pair of pixels based on the parameters output by the set up unit. The blender determines the color intensity values of the pair of pixels as a function of the coverages and writes the color values into a memory. The memory is a frame buffer type memory utilized to drive a display and is split into at least four banks so that the color values of the pair of pixels can be simultaneously stored in different memory banks. The apparatus also incorporates a method for resolving accumulation error in the derivation of each pixel's position and a method for accommodating for the effect of a third intersected pixel on the line to be drawn.

Method and apparatus for antialiasing raster scanned images

A method and apparatus for drawing at least a one pixel wide antialiased line on an edge of a filled polygon. The apparatus comprises an interpolator, having a set up unit and an iterator unit, and a blender. The set up unit determines various parameters of the line to be drawn and selects a pair of pixels adjacent to and straddling an idealized line representing the line to be drawn, where the first pixel is claimed by the edge of the polygon as a filled pixel. The iterator unit determines the coverages of the second pixel based on the parameters output by the set up unit. The blender determines the color intensity value of the second pixel as a function of its coverage and writes the color value into a memory. The apparatus also incorporates methods for antialiasing polygon meshes and resolving accumulation error in the derivation of each pixel's position.

Method and apparatus for antialiasing raster scanned, polygonal shaped

An image processor is provided which rasterizes polygons with a minimum of computation. Pixels are tested for being inside a triangle by sorting the vertices by their values in one coordinate, rounding the vertices to the nearest pixels, and calculating two characteristic functions for pixels one scan line at a time, thereby identifying two end pixels for the scan line, where the particular functions used are edge characteristic functions for the two edges which bound pixels in the scan line within the triangle defined by the rounded vertices. To avoid ambiguity, pixels on one end of a scan line are deemed outside the triangle if they are exactly on the edge. Alternatively, only one function per pixel is used, the edge function for the nearest edge. The rasterization process is extensible to polygons of more than three sides, by taking into account that only two sides of the polygon need to be considered for a given scan line, and thus only two characteristic functions are needed at any one time. Using just the fractional part of an edge's intersection with a scan line to detect whether a pixel is inside or outside is also possible. Where a characteristic function is used, the value of the function can be used as an anti-aliasing value, which would be a measure of how much of the pixel lies inside the triangle.

Processor-based method for rasterizing polygons at an arbitrary precision

A method for rendering a three dimensional graphic object in a two dimensional display space by segmenting the object into parallelepipeds and decomposing the parallelepipeds into rods of voxels that are parallel to the depth axis (Z) of the display and by projecting the rods of voxels onto the X-Y plane of the display as lines of pixels and a method for drawing antialiased volumetric images. An apparatus for implementing both methods includes an interpolator, having a set-up unit and an iterator unit, and a blender. The set-up unit determines various parameters of the image to be drawn, including the total number of voxels to be blended together into each pixel to be drawn, and selects a pixel pair adjacent to and straddling an idealized line representing a line to be drawn. The iterator unit determines the coverages of the pixel pair based on parameters output by the set-up unit. The blender determines the color intensity values of the pixel pair as a function of the coverages, and the opacity of voxels in the voxel rod corresponding to each pixel, and writes the color values into a memory that drives the display. The memory is split into at least four banks so that color values of the pair of pixel can be simultaneously stored in different memory banks. A method for resolving accumulation error in the derivation of each pixel's position and a method for accommodating for the effect of additional intersected pixels may be used in connection with the above-described methods.

Method and apparatus for rendering volumetric images

A method and apparatus for anti-aliasing vectors, arcs and circles comprising a plurality of pixels on a video display. The distance, d, of each pixel from the centerline of a curve is computed using a plurality of linearly dependent equations. The intensity of each pixel is set as a function of the magnitude of the distance, d, of the pixel from the centerline of the curve. In some cases, the distance, d, is compared with ranges of distances and the intensity of the pixel set according to the range within which the pixel is located. In other cases, the intensity of the pixel is simply inversely proportional to its distance, d, from the centerline.

Method and apparatus for generating anti-aliased vectors, arcs and

The picking method and apparatus comprise: A CPU and a direct memory access (DMA) circuit which is used with a graphics microprocessor (G.mu.P) for virtually redrawing a display list from a system memory of objects in a bit map. A starting address and a number corresponding to the number of instructions in a segment comprising a plurality of display lists are sent to the DMA for this purpose. When the coordinates of a pointer match the coordinates of a selected data object, a pick interrupt signal and special pick instruction is sent to the CPU. The CPU then uses the starting address of the display list of a selected object from a table to generate a new display list to perform a pre-selected operation on the selected data object. The clipping method and apparatus comprise a plurality of data planes for storing data objects, a match plane for storing a clipping object and a one-bit register. In use, the pixels in the data and match planes are scanned. When a match occurs between a pixel in the match plane and the contents of the one-bit register, a match signal is generated. The match signal enables the data planes to re-store the corresponding pixels of the data objects in the match planes.

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Sunnyvale, CA, United States of America

Adrian Sfarti