Qnx Software Systems Limited

2236008 Ontario Limited

Qnx Software Systems Gmbh & Co. Kg

Blackberry Corporation

David Donohoe

Angela Lin

Darrin Kenneth Fry

Garry Turcotte

Peter H Van Der Veen

Dan T Dodge

Colin Burgess

Steve Tomkins

Xiaodan Tang

Brian Edmond

Darrin Kenneth John Fry

The present invention relates generally to computer graphics, and more specifically to methods of, and systems for, configuring, controlling and accessing multiple hardware graphics layers that are used to compose a single video display. One aspect of the invention is broadly defined as follows: in a computer environment including a software application and an operating system running on a computer, the computer including a graphics card and a video display, the graphics card being operable to render images to the video display. The operating system is operable to: receive draw events; and respond to draw requests from the software application by rendering the draw requests selectively to any of the available hardware layers on the graphics card; whereby the computer environment allows software applications to exploit available hardware layers on the graphics card.

Method and system for providing transparent access to hardware graphic layers

The present invention relates generally to computer graphics, and more specifically to methods of, and systems for, configuring, controlling and accessing multiple hardware graphics layers that are used to compose a single video display. One aspect of the invention is broadly defined as follows: in a computer environment including a software application and an operating system running on a computer, the computer including a graphics card and a video display, the graphics card being operable to render images to the video display, the improvement comprising: the operating system including a universal application programming interface (API) which supports hardware layers on graphics cards; the operating system being operable to: receive draw events via the universal API; determine what hardware layers are available on the graphics card, and what their parameters are; and respond to draw requests from the software application by rendering the draw requests selectively to any of the available hardware layers on the graphics card; whereby the computer environment allows software applications to exploit available hardware layers on the graphics card.

A software application and an operating system may run on a computer, which includes a graphics card and a video display, where the graphics card is operable to render images to the video display, and the operating system includes a universal application programming interface (API) which supports hardware layers on graphics cards. The operating system may be operable to receive draw events via the universal API; determine what hardware layers are available on the graphics card, and what their parameters are; and respond to draw requests from the software application by rendering the draw requests selectively to any of the available hardware layers on the graphics card.

A system compositing images from different applications includes a movie clip based application, an image application, and a compositing application that is in communication with the movie clip based application and the image application. The movie clip based application defines one or more movie clip images for display. The image application provides one or more images for display with the one or more movie clip images. The compositing application operates to composite the one or more movie clip images with the one or more images of the image application for viewing on a display.

System compositing images from multiple applications

A system for compositing images using a multilayer graphics controller includes first and second applications. The first application defines masked display regions to a layer of the multilayer graphics controller using masking criterion. The second application provides an image to a further layer of the multilayer graphics controller for display in the masked region. The image may be a still image, streaming video, Internet image, or any other image type.

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Ottawa, Canada

David Donohoe