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. 30, 1999
Filed:
Apr. 08, 1997
Vineet Goel, Santa Clara, CA (US);
Leonardo Vainsencher, San Jose, CA (US);
LSI Logic Corporation, Milpitas, CA (US);
Abstract
A method for efficient, high quality rendering of a surface patch. The method tests a surface patch for flatness, and if the surface patch is not flat, the method divides the surface patch into a left surface patch and a right surface patch. Otherwise if the surface patch is flat, the method converts the surface patch into triangles. This method can be implemented to operate recursively, thereby ensuring that all portions of the patch are eventually converted into triangles when the portions become small enough to satisfy the flatness condition. A patch tests as flat only if all curves which form the patch do not deviate from straight lines by more than a predetermined tolerance. The division is efficiently performed by determining (i) left patch control points for a first portion of all curves along one axis of the surface patch, and (ii) right patch control points for a second portion of all curves along said axis of the surface patch. The axis of division preferably alternates, so that the dividing is done along a second axis if patch is not flat along the second axis and a preceding division occurred along a first axis. The method also includes tests for backfaced orientation of the patch and external location of the patch. The patch is discarded if it faces away from the viewpoint or does not appear inside the viewing region.