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:
Jun. 11, 2002
Filed:
May. 20, 1999
James M. Knittel, Groton, MA (US);
Terarecon, Inc., San Mateo, CA (US);
Abstract
A method modulates volume samples in an illumination stage of a volumetric rendering pipeline. The method determines a magnitude of a gradient vector of a volume sample. The gradient vector has components G G and G . The squares of the components are summed to determine a squared gradient magnitude |G |. The square root of the squared magnitude |G | is taken to determine the magnitude |G| of the gradient vector. A step value in a gradient magnitude range is then specified. A high pass modulation factor is set to zero if the magnitude is less than the step value, and to one otherwise to modulate the volume sample with a step function.