Did You Know...
...that power steering was invented by independent inventor Francis W. Davis? As chief engineer in the 1920s of the truck division of the Pierce Arrow Motor Car Company, he saw how hard it was to steer heavy vehicles. So that he would be able to keep the profits from his future invention, Davis left his job, rented a small engineering shop in Waltham, Mass., and developed a hydraulic power steering system that led to power steering.
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| Number | Title | Issue Date |
| 7889209 | Apparatus and methods for wrapping texture onto the surface of a virtual object The invention provides techniques for wrapping a two-dimensional texture conformally onto a surface of a three dimensional virtual object within an arbitrarily-shaped, user-defined region. The techniques provide minimum distortion and allow interactive manipulation ... | 02/15/2011 |
| 7589742 | Random map generation in a strategy video game The generation of a random map for use in a video game may involve a random value generation function, with weighted texture and/or object values to control whether certain textures and/or objects are placed at certain locations on the map. Some locations may have n... | 09/15/2009 |
| 7411592 | Graphical processing of object perimeter information A technique for graphically processing perimeter information includes determining a polar representation of the perimeter of an object to define polar perimeter information, storing the polar perimeter information, retrieving the stored polar perimeter information u... | 08/12/2008 |
| 7356453 | Computerized pattern texturing A system and method for merging carpet design image patterns in order to create a custom-designed patterned carpet image. A customized carpet image is defined by identifying a plurality of carpet design fields within a carpet and selecting a distinct design pattern ... | 04/08/2008 |
| 7348989 | Preparing digital images for display utilizing view-dependent texturing A computer program embodied on a computer-readable medium, a computer readable medium storing computer-executable instructions, and a computer data signal embodied in a carrier wave, all for providing a graphic image utilizing view-dependent texture data, including ... | 03/25/2008 |
| 7348990 | Multi-dimensional texture drawing apparatus, compressing apparatus, drawing system, drawing method, and drawing program As for a multi-dimensional texture constituted by a plurality of textures different in photographing environment such as a viewing position or lighting conditions, texture images constituting the multi-dimensional texture are rearranged block by block or pixel by pi... | 03/25/2008 |
| 7336277 | Per-pixel output luminosity compensation Per-pixel luminosity adjustment uses a luminosity mask applied as a texture. In one embodiment, a luminosity texture is defined. Pixel data of an underlying image is converted to an image texture. The image texture is blended onto a target surface. The luminosity te... | 02/26/2008 |
| 7317473 | Image-based method and system for building spherical panoramas The invention relates to building spherical panoramas for image-based virtual reality systems. The image-based spherical panoramas can be navigated in any desired view direction (360-degrees) by suitable three-dimensional image browsers or viewers. The method and sy... | 01/08/2008 |
| 7312806 | Dynamic width adjustment for detail-in-context lenses A method for reducing occlusion in a presentation of a region-of-interest of an original image, the presentation generated by distorting the original image to produce a lens having a focal region for the region-of-interest at least partially surrounded by a shoulder... | 12/25/2007 |
| 7310165 | Dynamic color rendering dictionaries Dynamic Color Render Dictionaries are provided to automatically switch color rendering behavior between object types. The implementation resides entirely within the Color Render Dictionary (CRD) and require no changes to the state of the Postscript interpreter (Ther... | 12/18/2007 |
| 7275219 | Fast and accurate rendering of pliable display technology distortions using pre-calculated texel coverages A method for generating a presentation of region-of-interest in an information representation including the steps of: selecting a viewpoint for the region-of-interest; selecting a location for the region-of-interest; creating a lens surface having a predetermined lo... | 09/25/2007 |
| 7271811 | View dependent tiled textures An array of view-dependent sprited tiles provide different views of an image texture (e.g., structure, color, shading, illumination, transparency, as well as other image attributes). The different views of the image texture correspond to different viewing angles at ... | 09/18/2007 |
| 7256801 | Elastic presentation space A method for displaying visual information on a display screen of a computer, comprising the steps of scaling the visual information to produce a scaled representation to fit on the display screen the scaled representation containing the entire content of the visual... | 08/14/2007 |
| 7248269 | Magnification methods, systems, and computer program products for virtual three-dimensional books A system is described for displaying images of a virtual three-dimensional book having one or more virtual pages. The system comprises a display system capable of executing a display program wherein images of the virtual three-dimensional book are produced on the di... | 07/24/2007 |
| 7242408 | Graphical processing of object perimeter information A technique for graphically processing perimeter information includes determining a polar representation of the perimeter of an object to define polar perimeter information, storing the polar perimeter information, retrieving the stored polar perimeter information u... | 07/10/2007 |
| 7233337 | Method and apparatus for modeling and real-time rendering of surface detail A method comprising generating a surface detail model using a modeling technique, and rendering surface detail in accordance with the developed surface detail model over an object surface. The described method enables computer-generated images containing representat... | 06/19/2007 |
| 7221371 | Shorter footprints for anisotropic texture filtering Shortening a footprint is a technique to reduce the number of texture samples anisotropically filtered to determine a texture value associated with a graphics fragment. Reducing the number of texture samples anisotropically filtered reduces the number of texture sam... | 05/22/2007 |
| 7213214 | Graphical user interface with zoom for detail-in-context presentations A graphical user interface (GUI) is provided for manipulating a presentation of a region of interest within visual information displayed on a display screen of a computer display system. The GUI includes: a first bounding shape surrounding the focal region; a second... | 05/01/2007 |
| 7197719 | Graphical user interface for detail-in-context presentations A method for displaying a region of interest within visual information on a display screen of a computer, the region of interest including a focal region and a base region. The method includes the steps of: providing means for selecting at least one parameter for tr... | 03/27/2007 |
| 7184060 | Special effect device, address signal generating device, address signal generating method and address signal generating program A special effect device by which an entirely new special picture effect is to be implemented in accordance with a read address control system. The device includes an address signal generating unit 3 which generates a readout address signal for picture signals... | 02/27/2007 |
| 7164424 | Interactive water effects using texture coordinate shifting A system and process for adding a photorealistic rendering of a body of water to a virtual 3D scene or image and creating a video therefrom having interactive water effects. A region of water is added to an image by adding an area depicting the original scene as it ... | 01/16/2007 |
| 7158177 | Apparatus for and method of synthesizing face image An image of a face of a person is acquired. Image data corresponding to the head is extracted from the image of the face. The image data is enlarged, reduced, or rotated to obtain an image of the head that is vibrating. The vibrating image of the head is displayed o... | 01/02/2007 |
| 7111156 | Method and apparatus for multi-thread accumulation buffering in a computation engine A method and apparatus for enhancing flexibility of instruction ordering in a multi-thread processing system that performs multiply and accumulate operations is presented. A plurality of accumulation registers is provided for storing the results of an adder, wherein... | 09/19/2006 |
| 7095421 | Selective super-sampling/adaptive anti-aliasing of complex 3D data A system and method is provided for preventing the occurrence of aliasing at the edges of polygons in 3D graphics. The system may detect both polygon geometric edges and Z edges due to intersection of multiple polygons. In one embodiment, the system includes an edge... | 08/22/2006 |
| 7091971 | System, method, and apparatus for multi-level hierarchical Z buffering A secondary representative Z value memory includes a reduced-resolution representation of a primary representative Z value memory. Upon updating of a block of the primary representative Z value memory, one or more corresponding values are calculated for updating the... | 08/15/2006 |
| 7061501 | Rendering a pencil-sketch image A pencil-sketch image is rendered from three-dimensional (3D) data by determining a pencil-sketch texture for a polygon defined by the 3D data, projecting the polygon onto a two-dimensional surface, and mapping the pencil-sketch texture onto the polygon to render th... | 06/13/2006 |
| 7050058 | Interactive water effects using texture coordinate shifting A system and process for adding a photorealistic rendering of a body of water to a virtual 3D scene or image and creating a video therefrom having interactive water effects. A region of water is added to an image by adding an area depicting the original scene as it ... | 05/23/2006 |
| 7009611 | Generating three dimensional text A method and apparatus are provided for generating three-dimensional text 1403 within images 1601 composited in real time, by means of generating three-dimensional text 1403 from one or a plurality of text formatting templates 303. Storag... | 03/07/2006 |
| 7002592 | Graphical display system and method for applying parametric and non-parametric texture maps to graphical objects A graphical display system comprises memory and a texture mapper. The memory stores a parametric texture map (PTM) and a non-parametric texture map (non-PTM). The texture mapper is configured to selectively apply, based on a viewing parameter of a graphical object, ... | 02/21/2006 |
| 7002590 | Modifying object geometry to accommodate information attributes One or more information attributes about an object is received. A determination is performed to find out if the one or more information attributes is in contention with geometry attributes of the object. When the one or more information attributes is in contention w... | 02/21/2006 |
| 6999971 | Apparatus and method for parametric group processing A method of parametric group processing includes forming a parametric index from an indexed database. A first parametric group and a second parametric group corresponding to elements in the parametric index are specified. The first parametric group and the second pa... | 02/14/2006 |
| 6985148 | Interactive water effects using texture coordinate shifting A system and process for adding a photorealistic rendering of a body of water to a virtual 3D scene or image and creating a video therefrom having interactive water effects. A region of water is added to an image by adding an area depicting the original scene as it ... | 01/10/2006 |
| 6975335 | Method of displaying magnified and reduced areas and apparatus thereof Magnified and/or reduced areas of a display are easily determined by the shades of color and a pattern densities which correspond to the magnification or reduction ratio of areas of the display. The areas that have been magnified and/or reduced are presented by vary... | 12/13/2005 |
| 6972766 | Recording medium storing dynamic picture image generation program, dynamic picture image generation program, dynamic picture image generation method, and device for the same In order to express undulation of a surface of an object realistically, a dynamic picture image generation device comprises a movement amount computation unit 310, which computes the movement amount for a vertex based on the connectedness, which is the degree... | 12/06/2005 |
| 6970174 | Texture mapping method and apparatus A texture mapping apparatus for jointing a plurality of texture images where mapping positions are partially overlapped so as to map the texture images on a surface of a three-dimensional model. The texture mapping apparatus has a texture cutting out section which e... | 11/29/2005 |
| 6967654 | System and method for specifying elliptical parameters An interactive elliptical arc control system and method are disclosed. Three control points are provided—a center control point and two foci control points—that a user can interactively manipulate in order to specify and change the elliptical parameters involved... | 11/22/2005 |
| 6952205 | Recording medium storing 3D image processing program, the program, 3D image processing method and video game apparatus A background image generator 51 renders a first 3D model representing a landscape to generate a background image, an image generator 52 generates a second 3D model to be located between a camera viewpoint and the first 3D model, an image adhering unit ... | 10/04/2005 |
| 6938218 | Method and apparatus for three dimensional internet and computer file interface A method and apparatus for geometrically organizing, interfacing to, surfing, authoring, converting and viewing computer files such as pages on the World Wide Web or operator interface windows of application software. A plurality of related Web pages or windows are ... | 08/30/2005 |
| 6924822 | Magnification methods, systems, and computer program products for virtual three-dimensional books A system is described for displaying images of a virtual three-dimensional book having one or more virtual pages. The system comprises a display system capable of executing a display program wherein images of the virtual three-dimensional book are produced on the di... | 08/02/2005 |
| 6839065 | Method for producing bump mapping effect for a three dimensional object of a computer graphic A method is for producing the bump mapping effect for a 3D object in a computer graphic. First, a shading vector is produced at one point of the surface of the 3D object. A shift coordinate with respect to this point is determined, according to the shading vector. A... | 01/04/2005 |
