Apple Inc.

James J Shearer

Chad E Jones

Christopher P Wright

Ryan N Armstrong

Methods, devices, systems, and computer readable media to improve the operation of window-based operating systems are disclosed. In general, techniques are disclosed for rendering areas on a display in which two or more shadows overlap. More particularly, two or more shadow regions (based on the arrangement of overlapping windows/shadows) are identified and merged in a top-down process so that no region's shadow is painted or rendered more than once. A shadowbuffer (analogous to a system's framebuffer) may be used to retain windows' alpha information separately from the corresponding windows' shadow intensity information.

Unitary shadows

Methods, devices, systems, and computer readable media to improve the operation of window-based operating systems is disclosed. In general, techniques are disclosed for correctly rendering areas on a display in which two or more shadows overlap. More particularly, two or more shadow regions (based on the arrangement of overlapping windows/shadows) are identified and merged in a top-down process so that no region's shadow is painted or rendered more than once. To accomplish this a shadowbuffer (analogous to a system's framebuffer) may be used to retain windows' alpha information separately from the corresponding windows' shadow intensity information.

Growing community of inventors

San Francisco, CA, United States of America

James J Shearer