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:
Jan. 29, 2002
Filed:
May. 20, 1999
James M. Knittel, Groton, MA (US);
Jan C. Hardenbergh, Sudbury, MA (US);
Hanspeter Pfister, Somerville, MA (US);
Urs H. Kanus, Tuebingen, DE;
Drew R. Martin, Medford, MA (US);
Frederic H. Mokren, Bellevue, WA (US);
Tera Recon Inc., San Mateo, CA (US);
Abstract
An apparatus illuminates samples in a volume rendering pipeline. The apparatus includes the following units. A gradient magnitude modulation unit produces an opacity, emissive, diffuse and specular modulation factor from a gradient magnitude vector of each sample. A reflectance mapping unit produces a diffuse intensity and a specular intensity from the gradient magnitude vector of each sample and an eye vector of the volume. A first arithmetic logic unit combines an opacity of each sample with the corresponding opacity modulation factor to generate modulated opacities. A second arithmetic logic unit combines an emissive coefficient with the emissive modulation factor of each sample to generate modulated emissive coefficients. A third arithmetic logic unit combines the diffuse intensity with the diffuse modulation factor of each sample to generate modulated diffuse intensities. A fourth arithmetic logic unit combines the specular intensity with the specular modulation factor of each sample to generate modulated specular intensities, and a lighting unit applies the modulated emissive coefficient, modulated diffuse and specular intensities to color components of the samples to illuminate the volume sample.