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:
Jun. 22, 1993
Filed:
Oct. 11, 1990
Koji Koyamada, Hadano, JP;
International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, NY (US);
Abstract
A method and apparatus for generating image data representing an iso-valued surface. A series of points in three dimensional space each having positional data and an assigned scalar value is analyzed by dividing the space into tetrahedral elements, generating tetrahedral element representative normal vectors, generating vertex representative normal vectors data, and calculating pixel values for viewing rays passing through the tetrahedra. Tetrahedral elements have the advantage of requiring only the solution of linear equations instead of quadratic equations. The use of representative normal vector data rather than geometric data for each associated triangle greatly reduces the storage requirements for processing the data. The reduced data storage and associated reduced processing time allows generation of iso-valued surfaces at high speed with a minimum memory requirement.