Arm Norway As

Arm Limited

Fxi Technologies As

Edvard Sørgård

Jørn Nystad

Borgar Ljosland

Mario Blazevic

Frode Heggelund

Frank Klaeboe Langtind

Androas Due Engh-Halstvedt

When rendering a scene that includes a complex object made up of many individual primitives, rather than processing each primitive making up the object in turn, a bounding volume which surrounds the complex object is generated and the scene is then processed using the bounding volume in place of the actual primitives making up the complex object. If it is determined that the bounding volume representation of the object will be completely occluded in the scene (e.g. by a foreground object), then the individual primitives making up the complex object are not processed. This can save significantly on processing time and resources for the scene.

Graphics processing systems

A graphic rendering pipeline has a number of different rendering units and receives fragments for rendering. A renderer stated word cache is used to store rendering state data to be used to configure the rendering units when they render a fragment. Each rendering unit includes a functional block which carries out a rendering operation on a received fragment and a renderer state word interface that can be used to look up the required rendering state data from the renderer state word cache. Each fragment is provided to the rendering pipeline with fragment data that indicates, inter alia, a fragment index, a renderer state word index, and other fragment data that is necessary to render the fragment. When a rendering unit of the rendering pipeline receives a fragment to be rendered, it firstly uses the renderer state word index associated with the fragment to look-up, using its renderer state word interface, the relevant rendering state data from the renderer state word cache. It then uses that rendering state data to configure its functional block, and then renders the fragment.

Processing of 3-dimensional graphics

A distribution medium () for providing an application to a host system () includes an interface element () for interfacing with the host (), a memory or storage module () that stores application code representing the application and a hardware element (). The hardware element () directly accesses application content stored in the memory (), processes that application content to transform it to another form, and then provides the transformed content to the host system ().

Systems and methods to provide applications to microprocessor systems using a hardware element on a distribution meduim

An array of texture data elements (texels) is subdivided into a plurality of 8&#xd7;4 texture element blocks, each of which 8&#xd7;4 texture element blocks encodes two 4&#xd7;4 texture element sub-blocks. Each encoded texture data block includes data indicating a method to be used to generate a set of color values to be used for the texture elements that the encoded data block represents, and data indicating a method to be used for generating the colors of the individual texture elements using that generated set of colors. As well as the individual texture data blocks, a header data block encoding a base set of colors is generated. This base color set defines a set of colors that is used to generate the colors to be used when reproducing each individual encoded texture data block.

Method of and apparatus for encoding and decoding data

A memory management arrangement includes a memory management unit, a cache memory and a queue arrangement. The queue is a first-in, first-out (FIFO) buffer which can queue failed memory access requests and return them as inputs to the memory management unit via the busfor retrying through the memory management unit at a later time. If a memory access request sent to the memory management unit experiences a cache 'miss', instead of blocking memory access requests until the required address data has been loaded into the cache, the memory management unit operates to place the failed memory access request in the replay queue, and allows subsequent memory access requests to continue. The failed memory access requests in the queue are then continuously circulated through the memory management unit from the queue alternately with new memory access requests from other access initiators.

Memory management unit in a microprocessor system

A graphics processing platform includes a rasteriserthat receives primitives representing an image to be displayed for processing. The rasteriserdetermines which sets of sampling points of the image include sampling points that are covered by a given primitive, and then generates a fragment for rendering for each set of sampling points found to include a sampling point that is covered by the primitive and passes those fragments to a rendererfor rendering. The renderercarries out rendering operations on the fragments that it receives, and stores the rendered fragment data in tile buffers. The rendered fragment data is stored in multiple copies in the appropriate sample positions in the tile buffers, so as to provide a separate set of fragment data for each individual sample position taken of the image. The data from the tile buffersis input to a downsampling unit, and hence output to a frame bufferof a display devicefor display.

Processing of computer graphics

Method of and apparatus for encoding data

A graphics processing platform includes a rasteriserthat receives primitives representing an image to be displayed for processing. The rasteriserdetermines which sets of sampling points of the image include sampling points that are covered by a given primitive, and then generates a fragment for rendering for each set of sampling points found to include a sampling point that is covered by the primitive and passes those fragments to a rendererfor rendering. The renderercarries out rendering operations on the fragments that it receives, and stores the rendered fragment data in tile buffers. The rendered fragment data is stored in multiple copies in the appropriate sample positions in the tile buffers, so as to provide a separate set of fragment data for each individual sample position taken of the image. The data from the tile buffersis input to a downsampling unit, and thence output to a frame bufferof a display devicefor display.

Growing community of inventors

Trondheim, Norway

Edvard Sørgård