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:
Nov. 23, 2004
Filed:
Jul. 13, 2000
Joe Christopher St. Clair, Round Rock, TX (US);
Mark Ernest Van Nostrand, Cedar Park, TX (US);
International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, NY (US);
Abstract
A sphere mode texture coordinate generator circuit for use in a graphics adapter of a data processing system is disclosed. The circuit includes a set of input multiplexers configured to receive x, y, and z components of a normal vector and a unit vector corresponding to the current vertex. The circuit further includes a set of functional units such as a floating point multiplier, a floating point adder, a floating point compare-to-zero unit, and an inverse square unit. The functional units are configured to receive outputs from the set of multiplexer and are enabled to perform floating point operations on the outputs of the set of multiplexers. A controller or state machine of the circuit is enabled to determine the state of select inputs to each of the set of multiplexers. The controller manages the multiplexer select inputs such that the circuit determines sphere mode texture coordinates in response to receiving the normal vector and the unit vector. The circuit typically includes a set of latches, where the input of each of the latches is connected to an output of a corresponding input multiplexer. The circuit may include an S Out multiplexer and a T Out multiplexer, where the output of S Out multiplexer represents the S sphere mode texture coordinate and the output of the T Out multiplexer represents the T sphere mode texture coordinate calculated in compliance with a predetermined specification such as the OpenGL® specification.