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. 20, 2002
Filed:
Jul. 21, 1999
Russell A. Brown, Palo Alto, CA (US);
Sun Microsystems, Inc., Palo Alto, CA (US);
Abstract
The invention is a method and apparatus for clipping a function, such as a quadratic Bezier function defining a shading characteristic of an object being modeled. In accordance with the invention, a second or higher order function is clipped in “linear” fashion using barycentric coordinates. In accordance an embodiment of the invention, the method comprises the steps of determining a second or higher order function to be clipped, determining barycentric coordinates for at least one clipping point associated with a first order (i.e. linear) function associated with the second or higher order function and generating at least one clipping point associated with the second or higher order function using the barycentric coordinates. In one or more embodiments of the invention, the method includes the steps of using the barycentric coordinates to determine a reparameterized clipped function.