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:
Aug. 22, 2000
Filed:
Jun. 10, 1996
Henry H Rich, Raleigh, NC (US);
PixelFusion Limited, Bristol, GB;
Abstract
Methods, apparatus and program products provide load balancing in a paralell processing image generation system. In an image generation system for generating pixel values of a pixel array which corresponds to a group of geometric primitives which define a computer generated image where the image generation system includes a plurality of processing elements which are assigned to a specified pixel of the pixel array. The specification of pixels to processing elements is carried out to balance the processing load of the plurality of processing elements. Regions of the pixel array may be associated with subsets of the plurality of processing elements. A linear expression evaluator then provides region specific coefficients to the subsets of the plurality of processing elements. The plurality of processing elements may also be divided into a plurality of panels. The pixels are then associated with one of the plurality of panels and the linear expression evaluator provides region specific coefficients to the processing elements of the panel associated with the region. The regions may be further divided into a plurality of subregions with at least one pixel from each of the plurality of subregions assigned to each of the processing elements.