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:
Jun. 29, 2001
Henry A. Sowizral, Bellevue, WA (US);
Karel Zikan, Seattle, WA (US);
Randall G. Keller, San Carlos, CA (US);
Sun Microsystems, Inc., Palo Alto, CA (US);
Abstract
A system and method for performing visible object determination based upon a dual search of a cone hierarchy and a bound hierarchy performed by multiple processors. Each processor is configured to read a (global and/or local) problem queue to access a bound-cone pair. The bound-cone pair points to a bound in the bound hierarchy and a cone in the cone hierarchy. The processor computes a bound-cone distance between the bound and the cone, and compares the bound-cone distance to a visibility distance associated with the cone. If the bound-cone distance is smaller than the visibility distance, the processor may write two or more refined bound-cone pairs corresponding to a refinement of the original pair to the global or local problem queue. When the processor detects a leaf bound and a leaf cone, it updates a nearest object pointer and the visibility distance associated with the leaf cone.