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:
Jul. 04, 2017
Filed:
Oct. 14, 2010
Steven E. Molnar, Chapel Hill, NC (US);
Emmett M. Kilgariff, San Jose, CA (US);
Walter E. Donovan, Saratoga, CA (US);
Christian Amsinck, Durham, NC (US);
Robert Ohannessian, Austin, TX (US);
Steven E. Molnar, Chapel Hill, NC (US);
Emmett M. Kilgariff, San Jose, CA (US);
Walter E. Donovan, Saratoga, CA (US);
Christian Amsinck, Durham, NC (US);
Robert Ohannessian, Austin, TX (US);
NVIDIA CORPORATION, Santa Clara, CA (US);
Abstract
One embodiment of the present invention sets forth a technique for converting alpha values into pixel coverage masks. Geometric coverage is sampled at a number of 'real' sample positions within each pixel. Color and depth values are computed for each of these real samples. Fragment alpha values are used to determine an alpha coverage mask for the real samples and additional 'virtual' samples, in which the number of bits set in the mask bits is proportional to the alpha value. An alpha-to-coverage mode uses the virtual samples to increase the number of transparency levels for each pixel compared with using only real samples. The alpha-to-coverage mode may be used in conjunction with virtual coverage anti-aliasing to provide higher-quality transparency for rendering anti-aliased images.