Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Kent E Griffin

Michael A Toelle

Mark L Kenworthy

James E Veres

Joseph W Chauvin

Steven A Gabriel

John G Torborg, Jr

Howard Good

William Chambers Powell, Iii

George Easton Scott, Iii

John Michael Snyder

James Thomas Kajiya

Conal M Elliott

A gsprite engine circuit reads a display list identifying gsprite image layers to be composited for display, retrieves gsprite image data from an external memory, and transforms the gsprite data to display device coordinates. The gsprite image layers represent independently rendered graphical objects in a graphics scene. The gsprite engine can simulate the motion of the graphical objects in a sequence of display images by performing affine transformations on the gsprite image layers. The interface to the gsprite engine circuit includes the display list and gsprite header blocks. The display list enumerates the gsprites to be composited as a display image. The header blocks describe a gsprite transform, which can be an affine transform, used to transform gsprites to display device coordinates. The header blocks also provide an array of references to image blocks or 'chunks' comprising the gsprite.

Processor for controlling the display of rendered image layers and

A method for texture mapping an image includes passing an interpolating filter along a line of anisotropy in a texture map and computing a weighted sum of the outputs of the interpolating filter to compute pixel intensity values. The weighting of these output values can be computed using a one dimensional digital filter. The line of anisotropy is derived from the inverse transform, which describes the mapping of a point on the surface of a geometric primitive to a point in the texture map. A system supporting anisotropic filtering includes texture memory, a set-up processor, and a texture filter engine. The set-up processor parses a command stream and retrieves texture data into the texture memory. The texture filter engine determines the line of anisotropy for a pixel and computes a weighted sum of interpolated values sampled along the line of anisotropy.

Method and system for texture mapping images with anisotropic filtering

A method for merging pixel fragments to reduce memory usage in a graphics rendering system. In rendering a graphics scene, geometric primitives of objects in the scene are rasterized to create pixel data including pixel fragments representing partially covered pixels. Lists of pixel fragments having color, depth, and coverage data are stored in a fragment buffer. When a new fragment is generated, an attempt is made to merge the fragment with the last fragment stored for a corresponding pixel location. Fragments are merged if they are within predefined depth and color tolerances.

Method and system for merging pixel fragments in a graphics rendering

A graphics rendering chip serially renders a stream of geometric primitives to image regions called chunks. A set-up processor in the chip parses rendering commands and the stream of geometric primitives and computes edge equation parameters. A scan-convert processor receives the edge equation parameters from the set-up processor and scan converts the geometric primitives to produce pixel records and fragment records. An internal, double-buffered pixel buffer stores pixel records for fully covered pixel addresses and also stores references to fragment lists stored in a fragment buffer. A pixel engine performs hidden surface removal and controls storage of pixel and fragment records to the pixel and fragment buffers, respectively. An anti-aliasing engine resolves pixel data for one pixel buffer while the pixel engine fills the other pixel buffer with pixel data for the next chunk.

Graphics rendering device and method for operating same

A system for accessing texture data in a graphics rendering system allows texture data to be stored in memories with high latency or in a compressed format. The system utilizes a texture cache to temporarily store blocks of texture data retrieved from an external memory during rendering operations. In one implementation, geometric primitives are stored in a queue long enough to absorb the latency of fetching and possibly decompressing a texture block. The geometric primitives are converted into texture block references, and these references are used to fetch texture blocks from memory. A rasterizer rasterizes each geometric primitives as the necessary texture data becomes available in the texture cache. In another implementation, geometric primitives are converted into pixels, including a pixel address, color data, and a texture request. These pixels are stored in a queue long enough to absorb the latency of a texture block fetch. The texture requests are read from the queue and used to fetch the appropriate texture blocks. As texture data becomes available in the texture cache, the texture data is sampled as necessary and combined with the pixel data read from the queue to compute output pixels.

Method and system for accessing texture data in environments with high

A method for rendering graphical objects in a scene to generate a display images includes dividing the geometric primitives of models in a scene among portions or 'chunks' of the view space to which the primitives will be rendered, and then rendering geometry referenced to the chunks in series in a common depth buffer. Geometry for a chunk can be rendered, including sophisticated anti-aliasing and translucency computations, using a minimum of memory. Serially rendering object geometry in chunks provides an effective form of compression because pixel fragments can be generated for one chunk at a time and then resolved. Pixel fragments can be resolved in a post-processing step for one chunk while primitives for another chunk are rasterized.

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Kent E Griffin