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| Number | Title | Issue Date |
| 8179394 | Cull streams for fine-grained rendering predication One embodiment of the present invention sets forth a technique to perform fine-grained rendering predication using an IGPU and a DGPU. A graphics driver divides a 3D object into batches of triangles. The IGPU processes each batch of triangles through a modified rend... | 05/15/2012 |
| 8174526 | Methods and apparatus for rendering or preparing digital objects or portions thereof for subsequent processing Methods and apparatus render images of digital objects or prepare digital objects for subsequent processing. The method includes sorting data representative of positions of at least three vertices of polygons of a digital object, then determining whether the orienta... | 05/08/2012 |
| 8154545 | Method for producing technical drawings from 3D models with at least two colliding 3D bodies The invention relates to a method and a computer-aided modelling system for creating a technical drawing from at least two modelled 3D bodies that collide with one another. In a first step, one or more of the regions of the 3D bodies that are affected by the collisi... | 04/10/2012 |
| 8102393 | Cull streams for fine-grained rendering predication One embodiment of the present invention sets forth a technique to perform fine-grained rendering predication using an IGPU and a DGPU. A graphics driver divides a 3D object into batches of triangles. The IGPU processes each batch of triangles through a modified rend... | 01/24/2012 |
| 8081181 | Prefix sum pass to linearize A-buffer storage The architecture implements A-buffer in hardware by extending hardware to efficiently store a variable amount of data for each pixel. In operation, a prepass is performed to generate the counts of the fragments per pixel in a count buffer, followed by a prefix sum p... | 12/20/2011 |
| 8072451 | Efficient Z testing Z testing during computer graphics rendering is performed in a manner so as to optimize rendering. The status of a pixel as non-promotable may be tracked using a pixel status array (PSA). Each PSA row may contain bits which correspond to the non-promotable status of... | 12/06/2011 |
| 8063900 | GPU assisted 3D compositing A method to perform compositing of three-dimensional images includes, on a Central Processing Unit (CPU), automatically assembling a Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) program for each element of a plurality of image elements. The GPU program for each element is to appl... | 11/22/2011 |
| 8040348 | Combined sectional view producing method and apparatus A combined sectional view is produced by obtaining a section plane based on one of a plurality of section lines, which is currently set as a target, and on a cut face along the target section line, obtaining an adjacent section plane passing a crossed point between ... | 10/18/2011 |
| 8040349 | System and method for structuring an A-buffer One embodiment of the present invention sets forth a technique for efficiently creating and accessing an A-Buffer with a GPU. The A-Buffer is organized in arrays of uniformly-sized tiles. Each array represents a group of pixels, and each tile within an array include... | 10/18/2011 |
| 8026915 | Programmable visible surface compositing Programmable or user-defined visibility functions can be defined to achieve rendering effects and eliminate rendering errors. A renderer traverses the set of geometry samples potentially visible to an image sample. Rather than accumulate opacity and color in strict ... | 09/27/2011 |
| 7982733 | Rendering 3D video images on a stereo-enabled display The rendering of 3D video images on a stereo-enabled display (e.g., stereoscopic or autostereoscopic display) is described. The process includes culling facets facing away from a viewer, defining foreground facets for Left and Right Views and common background facet... | 07/19/2011 |
| 7978193 | Methods and apparatus for rendering or preparing digital objects or portions thereof for subsequent processing Methods and apparatus render images of digital objects or prepare digital objects for subsequent processing. The method includes sorting data representative of positions of at least three vertices of polygons of a digital object, then determining whether the orienta... | 07/12/2011 |
| 7948486 | Apparatus and method for performing hidden surface removal and computer program product An image processing apparatus includes a first and second Z value calculators that calculate a polygon Z value and a block Z value, respectively. The polygon Z value is a coordinate value of a pixel located at a closest point to a viewpoint. The block Z value is a c... | 05/24/2011 |
| 7944442 | Graphics system employing shape buffer The system includes a shape buffer manager configured to store coverage data in the shape buffer. The coverage data indicates whether each mask pixel is a covered pixel or an uncovered pixel. A mask pixel is a covered pixel when a shape to be rendered on a screen co... | 05/17/2011 |
| 7864174 | Methods and systems for reducing the number of rays passed between processing elements in a distributed ray tracing system Embodiments of the invention provide techniques and systems for reducing network traffic in relation to ray-tracing a three dimensional scene. According to one embodiment of the invention, as a ray is traversed through a spatial index, a leaf node may be reached. Su... | 01/04/2011 |
| 7839402 | Virtual endoscopy In a virtual endoscopy method, an unfolding axis (100, 100′) substantially along an elongated lumen (150) is divided into axis segments (110). Ray casting directions (104) are selected extending generally radially from the axis segments... | 11/23/2010 |
| 7834872 | Tiling system for 3D rendered graphics A method and an apparatus for shading three-dimensional computer graphic images is provided. A display on which the image is to be viewed is subdivided into a plurality of rectangular areas. For each rectangular area, a list of objects in the image which may be visi... | 11/16/2010 |
| 7786992 | Method for rendering multi-dimensional image data A method for rendering multi-dimensional image data having a plurality of objects is disclosed. The method includes the following steps: providing an object database for storing the objects, providing a first pointer storage block, obtaining a depth value of the obj... | 08/31/2010 |
| 7782317 | Depth ordering of planes and displaying interconnects having an appearance indicating data characteristics A method for determining a depth ordering between two planes in a 3D workspace of an application is provided. The method includes projecting vectors from a reference position through points of interest on the planes, determining corresponding points on the other pla... | 08/24/2010 |
| 7777741 | Techniques for accurately determining visibility of objects from multiple viewpoints in a three-dimensional (3D) environment An apparatus for determining visibility of agents in a scene from multiple viewpoints in a there-dimensional environment. The apparatus comprises a programmable vertex processor operable to execute a plurality of vertex programs. A programmable fragment processor is... | 08/17/2010 |
| 7755624 | Apparatus, system, and method for Z-culling A processor generates Z-cull information for tiles and groups of tiles. In one embodiment the processor includes an on-chip cache to coalesce Z information for tiles to identify occluded tiles. In a coprocessor embodiment, the processor provides Z-culling informatio... | 07/13/2010 |
| 7733341 | Three dimensional image processing A method and apparatus for storing object files containing triangle strips and displaying the triangle strips in the order in which they were created and stored in the object files. ... | 06/08/2010 |
| 7705845 | Clipping graphics primitives with deferred derivation of vertex attributes Apparatus, system, and method for clipping graphics primitives are described. In one embodiment, a graphics processing apparatus includes a clipping engine and an output unit connected to the clipping engine. The clipping engine is configured to clip an input graphi... | 04/27/2010 |
| 7692648 | System and method for empty space skipping in sliding texture based volume rendering by trimming slab polygons A method for volume rendering a digitized image includes providing a pair of adjacent 2-dimensional images of texture data, identifying a plurality of polygons extending in slabs between said adjacent two dimensional textures, and finding the first and last visible ... | 04/06/2010 |
| 7619624 | Methods and apparatus for rendering or preparing digital objects or portions thereof for subsequent processing Methods and apparatus for rendering images of digital objects or for preparing digital objects for subsequent processing. The method includes sorting data representative of the positions of at least three vertices of at least one polygon of a digital object, then de... | 11/17/2009 |
| 7609263 | Drawing processing apparatus and method for compressing drawing data A drawing processing apparatus is provided to solve the problems in which pixels of a drawing primitive with sub-pixel information may have an increased amount of data causing a burden on implementation. A setup processing unit sets up various parameters to allow a ... | 10/27/2009 |
| 7593010 | Software-implemented transform and lighting module and pipeline for graphics rendering on embedded platforms using a fixed-point normalized homogenous coordinate system A software-implemented transform and lighting module and pipeline designed and optimized for embedded platforms (such as mobile computing devices). The transform and lighting module and pipeline includes a number of features that make it well-suited for use on embed... | 09/22/2009 |
| 7583263 | System and method for transparency rendering A system, method, and computer program product that accepts raw polygon geometry and view parameters from the visualization API, sorts the polygons in back-to-front order, and then supplies the sorted triangles to graphics API such as OpenGL. ... | 09/01/2009 |
| 7554540 | System and method of visible surface determination in computer graphics using interval analysis A system is provided for visible surface determination in furtherance of photorealistic rendering in a computer graphics environment. The system includes a scene database and a processor, visual characteristics of objects of an image frame of a scene of the scene da... | 06/30/2009 |
| 7538765 | Method and apparatus for generating hierarchical depth culling characteristics A method and apparatus for generating hierarchical depth culling characteristics includes determining a first minimum depth value and a first maximum depth value for a first graphical element. The graphical element may be a primitive. The first minimum depth value m... | 05/26/2009 |
| 7518607 | Hidden-line removal method A hidden-line removal method is provided which is executed in an image processing apparatus. The method includes the steps of extracting portions of the polygons contained in each of the divided areas on a two-dimensional plane using the projected three-dimensional ... | 04/14/2009 |
| 7505036 | Order-independent 3D graphics binning architecture A binning architecture that allows opaque and transparent primitives to be segregated automatically into pairs of bins covering the same bin rectangle on the screen. When the frame is complete, the opaque bin will be rendered first and then the transparent bin will ... | 03/17/2009 |
| 7499052 | Z-jittering of particles in image rendering A method of rendering an image having a plurality of objects. The method comprises: generating an adjusted z-position by randomly adjusting the original z-position of an object over a series of samples; sorting the plurality of objects in a sample based on the adjus... | 03/03/2009 |
| 7499051 | GPU assisted 3D compositing A method to perform compositing of three-dimensional images includes, on a Central Processing Unit (CPU), automatically assembling a Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) program for each element of a plurality of image elements. The GPU program for each element is to appl... | 03/03/2009 |
| 7479960 | Object visibility control for ray tracing A computer graphics method and apparatus allows designer control over the rendering of objects and scenes, in a rendering system using ray tracing for example. A modeling system is adapted to accept rules for controlling how certain objects affect the appearance of ... | 01/20/2009 |
| 7468726 | Culling in a vertex processing unit A graphics processor performs culling of invisible primitives in a vertex processing unit that includes a geometry shader or other processing engine that performs per-primitive operations. Primitives can be culled after clip space coordinates for the vertices have b... | 12/23/2008 |
| 7460119 | Invisible space skipping with adaptive granularity for texture-based volume rendering A method of accelerating texture-based volume rendering is provided. The method includes the following steps. A plurality of levels of granularity comprising a plurality of sub-volumes organized in a hierarchical structure are built. The hierarchical structure is or... | 12/02/2008 |
| 7450120 | Apparatus, system, and method for Z-culling A processor generates Z-cull information for tiles and groups of tiles. In one embodiment the processor includes an on-chip cache to coalesce Z information for tiles to identify occluded tiles. In a coprocessor embodiment, the processor provides Z-culling informatio... | 11/11/2008 |
| 7439970 | Computer graphics A method of and apparatus for generating a graphical image of at least part of an object provided within a hierarchically divided region of space from a plurality of stored graphical representations, of the differently sized sub-regions of the space is described. Th... | 10/21/2008 |
| 7439990 | Surface selecting method and information processing apparatus A surface selecting method in an information processing apparatus for selecting a prescribed surface of a 3D model displayed on a display unit of the information processing apparatus includes a display control step of controlling the display unit so as to display th... | 10/21/2008 |
