The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Feb. 02, 1993
Filed:
Jan. 02, 1991
J Lane Molpus, Larkspur, CA (US);
Adam Levinthal, Redwood City, CA (US);
Ross Werner, Woodside, CA (US);
Next Computer, Inc., Redwood City, CA (US);
Abstract
A method and apparatus for a processor or other system device to map processor words to an associated random access memory. In one case, processor words are mapped directly to RAM with no modification. In another case, 32-bit pixels (eight bits each of red, green, blue and alpha) are converted to or from 16-bit pixels (four bits each of red, green, blue and alpha) using an ordered dithering technique. The ordered dithering technique spatially distributes the information that would otherwise be lost by truncation. This is accomplished by replacing exact pixel values with their pseudo-random average. This reduces the required pixel storage requirements by half, while maintaining a higher image quality than would be achieved by truncation alone.