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:
Nov. 09, 1999
Filed:
Jul. 03, 1997
Tanuja A Joshi, Bellevue, WA (US);
Daryl T Lawton, Bellevue, WA (US);
Microsoft Corporation, Redmond, WA (US);
Abstract
A method and apparatus for modifying a sprite containing a cutout feature for compositing with a background image modifies colors of pixels in the sprite according to their distances from the edge of the cutout feature to achieve desired visual effects such as edge softening. A distance mask for the sprite is generated which stores distance values representing distances of corresponding pixels in the sprite from the edge of the cutout feature. The distance mask can be efficiently generated by a chamfering technique. A clamping function is applied to the distance mask to determine scaling values for the respective pixels in the sprite. A modified sprite is constructed from the original sprite by modifying the colors of the pixels of the input sprite according to their respective scaling values. The modified sprite is then composited with the backgorund image to form a composite image.