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:
Feb. 08, 2000
Filed:
Jan. 09, 1997
Henry A Sowizral, Los Altos, CA (US);
Karel Zikan, Seattle, WA (US);
The Boeing Company, Seattle, WA (US);
Abstract
The image rendering system (20) of the present invention rapidly renders graphical image of complex structures. A complex structure is represented by a plurality of objects that can be organized into an object hierarchy. The image rendering system (20) projects a plurality of rays (55) from a given vision coordinate. For each projected ray, the image rendering system (20) determines with which objects in the object hierarchy are intersected by the ray (55). The image rendering system (20) then determines which object among those intersected by the ray (55) is closest to the given vision coordinate and adds that object to a set of visible objects. As objects are added to the set of visible objects, each object is rendered on the display in accordance with a current vision coordinate. Since the process of adding objects to the set of visible objects is decoupled and run asynchronously from the process of rendering visible objects on the display, the image rendering system (20) is capable of rendering objects at real-time frame rates.