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:
May. 19, 1998
Filed:
Feb. 02, 1996
Tommy H Tam, Mountain View, CA (US);
Michael L Gough, Ben Lomond, CA (US);
Apple Computer, Inc., Cupertino, CA (US);
Abstract
A method and apparatus for blending first and second images stored in respective first and second VRAM buffers for production of a combined image on a computer display screen. The method includes storing a first image to be blended in a first VRAM buffer and storing a second image to be blended in a second VRAM buffer. The blending mechanism includes the process of loading the respective VRAM buffers with component 4 bit contributions of information representing first and second gray levels or color tones pixelwise representative of corresponding pixel portions of the respective first and second images to be combined. The output of the VRAM buffers combines these contributions of the respective first and second images to produce an address to a look-up table which produces at that particular address location a blended gray level or color tone representative of a blending of the two gray levels or color tones. This combines the first video data and the second video data to produce a blended image on the computer display screen.