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:
Sep. 01, 1998
Filed:
Apr. 25, 1996
G Eric Engstrom, Kirkland, WA (US);
Craig G Eisler, Kirkland, WA (US);
Microsoft Corporation, Redmond, WA (US);
Abstract
A display device interface creates surface structures to represent regions in system or video memory. These surface structures enable application programs to access video memory directly. A flipping structure includes a front buffer and one or more back buffers. In response to an application's request to flip a flipping structure, a flipping function changes the reference to underlying surface memory, but the flipping structure remains unchanged with respect to the application. Surface structures are implemented using surface objects that represent pixmaps, Z buffers, or alpha buffers stored in video or system memory. Complex surface structures including two or more surfaces are implemented by attaching surface objects to each other.