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:
Apr. 12, 2011
Filed:
Jul. 28, 2006
Charles T. Loop, Seattle, WA (US);
James F. Blinn, Bellevue, WA (US);
Charles T. Loop, Seattle, WA (US);
James F. Blinn, Bellevue, WA (US);
Microsoft Corporation, Redmond, WA (US);
Abstract
Surfaces defined by Bézier tetrahedron are generated on programmable graphics hardware. Custom programmed vertex processing, performed by either the CPU or the GPU includes the computation of a symmetric tensor and the assignment of the unique elements of the computed symmetric tensor as vertex attribute data. The vertex attribute data is interpolated by the graphics hardware and output to custom programmed pixel processing. The pixel processing uses the interpolated vertex attribute data to reconstruct, at each pixel, the symmetric tensor which enables the determination of the roots of the polynomial defining the surface to be generated. If no real roots exist, the pixel processing can exit early. If the roots of the polynomial exist, the smallest root can be used as the basis for computing a normal to a point on the surface being rendered, enabling the determination of the color and depth of that pixel.