Bizarre Patents
Method and apparatus for making a drink hop along a bar or counter
A method for generating a drink which appears to hop from a remote spot on the bar or counter and take one or more leaps, before landing in a patron's glass.
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| Number | Title | Issue Date |
| 5884016 | System and method for displaying a selected region of a multi-dimensional data object A data visualization arrangement facilitates the display of a selected region of a multi-dimensional data object in a selected one of a plurality of display modes. The arrangement comprises a data object store, an interface, an object region retrieval com... | 03/16/1999 |
| 5857066 | Method and system for producing an improved hiking trail map A method and system of producing a 3D perspective representation of a hiking trail or the like in two dimensions. Manually-obtained first data indicative of a heading and distance of each approximately linear segment of the course of travel are correlated... | 01/05/1999 |
| 5850224 | Three dimensional parallel drawing apparatus for synthesizing graphics data with image data using a pixel depth buffer and an image depth register A three-dimensional graphics drawing apparatus having a plurality of frame buffers, a Z buffer and a Z register. The frame buffers are for writing pixel data into an address designated by coordinate values (X, Y) of ZY display coordinates and for storing ... | 12/15/1998 |
| 5841439 | Updating graphical objects based on object validity periods A graphic display system includes a set of rendering engines and a plurality of data storage units. Each data storage unit in the set of data storage units is coupled to at least one rendering engine in the set of rendering engines. A selection means is i... | 11/24/1998 |
| 5838938 | Multimedia user interface employing components of color to indicate the values of variables A graphical user interface for use in connection with computer display systems such as computer controlled multi-media editing systems. The interface utilizes the components of color (e.g., hue, luminance and saturation) to convey information to a user. E... | 11/17/1998 |
| 5838889 | Method and apparatus for flipping a double-sided graphic image having different sized first and second sides Electronic paper which has two sides, reverse of one another, which can be flipped over in response to user generated flip commands is described. When a piece of electronic paper is flipped over, a number of transition views of the paper are generated to ... | 11/17/1998 |
| 5801706 | Special purpose memory for graphics and display apparatus using the special purpose memory for graphics A three-dimensional graphic display apparatus performs hidden surface removal and color blending. Particularly, the graphic display apparatus includes a configuration of a special purpose memory for graphics, thereby forming a configuration of a graphic d... | 09/01/1998 |
| 5802326 | Method and apparatus for efficiently updating coordinates of hierarchical views In a computer display system, data structures or views are organized in a hierarchical manner. Each view has stored therein: (1) display information; (2) information pertaining to how that view is linked to other views in the hierarchy; (3) relative coord... | 09/01/1998 |
| 5798762 | Controlling a real-time rendering engine using a list-based control mechanism A system and method for controlling a real-time rendering engine includes a control program for defining in regions of system memory a block header and a list of flow-control instructions.... | 08/25/1998 |
| 5793371 | Method and apparatus for geometric compression of three-dimensional graphics data In a compression system, three-dimensional geometry is first represented as a generalized triangle mesh, a data structure that allows each instance of a vertex in a linear stream to specify an average of two triangles. Individual positions, colors, and no... | 08/11/1998 |
| 5786822 | Method and apparatus for mapping texture on an object displayed at a varying view angle from an observer A plurality of texture data of a surface of an object to be displayed as viewed from a plurality of assumed directions are stored in a texture memory. When a CPU sends to a graphic processor information specifying a shape of the surface, a direction to vi... | 07/28/1998 |
| 5784064 | Image processing Moving output images are presented to a two dimensional display, such as a conventional television receiver (26). Three video sources are read from a compact disc, a notional front image and a notional back image being in the form of CD-I A and B planes. ... | 07/21/1998 |
| 5771046 | Image processing system and method including perspective transformation of three-dimensional objects utilizing clipping plane positions Perspective transformation is performed on X, Y, Z coordinate data Xe, Ye and Ze in a view volume in a viewpoint coordinate system so as to obtain X, Y, Z coordinate data Xs, Ys and Zs in a screen coordinate system. The view volume being defined by a fron... | 06/23/1998 |
| 5771341 | Graphics apparatus and method for dividing parametric surface patches defining an object into polygons Before being used in an interactive graphics environment, control points defining Bezier curves are processed to determine the curvature of the patch. This value is then used to determine the number of recursive iterations required to divide the patch int... | 06/23/1998 |
| 5768491 | Display controller with enhanced video window clipping A computer system includes a display controller which supports video display. The display controller includes circuitry for determining which portions of one or more video windows should be written to the frame buffer responsive to the locations of other ... | 06/16/1998 |
| 5761525 | Method and system for scheduling the playback of a multimedia presentation A method and apparatus are provided for scheduling an isochronous playback event to an electronic calendar. In one embodiment, the invention determines the time interval, determines whether the user has a block of time available for playback, and schedule... | 06/02/1998 |
| 5758045 | Signal processing method and apparatus for interactive graphics system for contemporaneous interaction between the raster engine and the frame buffer In a signal processing method for use in a three-dimensional computer graphics system, in order to increase the processing speed between the raster engine and a frame buffer, the frame buffer is accessed by an interleaving method and a Z-value comparison ... | 05/26/1998 |
| 5757321 | Apparatus and method for clipping primitives using information from a previous bounding box process In apparatus for processing image data representing multi-dimensional objects, data is stored defining the position of a light source, a viewing position, an arrangement of polygons defining an object and a local transform for transforming said object int... | 05/26/1998 |
| 5757375 | Computer graphics system and method employing frame buffer having subpixel field, display fields and a control field for relating display fields to the subpixel field A computer graphics system is disclosed for generating pixel data corresponding to a plurality of pixels to be displayed. The computer graphics system includes a frame buffer having entries associated with each of the pixels. Each of the entries includes ... | 05/26/1998 |
| 5752253 | Process and device for the automatic generation of spreadsheets The invention relates to a process for automatic generation of spreadsheets from a model of the entity-relationship type which serves as a support for a relational data base. This data base module of the entity-relationship type is shown on a screen of an... | 05/12/1998 |
| 5748199 | Method and apparatus for converting a two dimensional motion picture into a three dimensional motion picture Techniques for converting a two-dimensional motion picture into a three dimensional stereo motion picture are disclosed. Wire frames of objects in the motion picture are constructed using the frames of the two-dimensional motion picture, substituted for t... | 05/05/1998 |
| 5745665 | Method for processing a three-dimensional data set into a composite two-dimensional image viewable as a three-dimensional image A method for processing a three-dimensional data set into a two-dimensional image that is viewable as a three-dimensional image is provided. The three-dimensional data set represents an object to be viewed and is sampled to create multiple two-dimensional... | 04/28/1998 |
| 5745666 | Resolution-independent method for displaying a three-dimensional model in two-dimensional display space A method for rendering a graphics image of a three-dimensional graphics model is described. The method consists of the steps of projecting a parametric surface representation of the three-dimensional graphics model into a two-dimensional parametric space;... | 04/28/1998 |
| 5745118 | 3D bypass for download of textures A method and apparatus for managing texture mapping data in a computer graphics system, the system including a host computer, primitive rendering hardware and a textured primitive data path extending between the host computer and the primitive rendering h... | 04/28/1998 |
| 5742291 | Method and apparatus for creation of three-dimensional wire frames Methods and apparatus are disclosed for the rapid creation of wire frame representations of 3-dimensional objects using generic wire frames which are prototypical of a class of objects and which are modifiable to correspond to a specific instance of the c... | 04/21/1998 |
| 5742288 | Method of generating or modifying solid model of an object according to cross-sectional shapes and a predetermined relationship and apparatus suitable for practicing the method Method and apparatus for generating a solid model of a structural assembly, or solid models of components of such assembly, according to cross sectional shapes of the components and attributes associated with the cross sectional shapes, wherein the compon... | 04/21/1998 |
| 5742293 | Data visualizer utilizing exterior selected and depth sorted polyhedron faces To provide high-speed volume rendering without computing the points at which a viewing ray intersects with the boundaries of a volume data area. Visualizing a volume entails: selecting the exterior faces that face toward a viewing point from among a plura... | 04/21/1998 |
| 5742292 | System and method for realistically displaying images indicating the effects of lighting on an object in three dimensional space A realistic image display system includes an input section, a storage section, a light source data specifying section, a parameter specifying section, a polygon generating section, an image generating section, and a display section. The polygon generating... | 04/21/1998 |
| 5742290 | Molecular orbital modeling system with an improved function processor A function processing system processes functions to make a three-dimensional display on a screen of a display means by connecting a plurality of lattice points of a space coordinate in a three-dimensional space region. The function processing system inclu... | 04/21/1998 |
| 5740341 | Design and production supporting system for component arrangement and pipe routing A design and production supporting system for component arrangement and routing comprises a three-dimensional (3-D) component mapping means based on two-dimensional logical connection information of plant components and 3-D arrangement space information. ... | 04/14/1998 |
| 5740343 | Texture compositing apparatus and method A texture compositing apparatus and method for combining multiple independent texture colors in a variety of ways in a single execution pass using a single texture compositing unit (TCU) per texture. The TCU receives a control signal, a blend factor, a lo... | 04/14/1998 |
| 5740337 | Stereoscopic imaging system with electronically controlled convergence angle A stereo-graphic apparatus has first and second imaging devices to provide a first image and a second image, respectively. The first and the second imaging device are spaced from each other to define a predetermined convergence angle. A distance detecting... | 04/14/1998 |
| 5736987 | Compression of graphic data normals Geometric data for a three-dimensional surface are compressed in regard to the data representing the continuity between triangles in a mesh that represents the three-dimensional surface. The geometric data include information defining the vertices of the ... | 04/07/1998 |
| 5731818 | Method and apparatus for constrained gamut clipping An efficient method for gamut clipping based on user-defined constraints on lightness and hue by: a) defining a color gamut surface of an output device using a gamut descriptor; b) specifying a search range based on maximum tolerances for lightness and hu... | 03/24/1998 |
| 5729672 | Ray tracing method and apparatus for projecting rays through an object represented by a set of infinite surfaces A method and apparatus for shading three-dimensional images for display on a screen by displaying each object as a group of infinite surfaces, projecting rays into the image, determining the location of the intersection of each ray with each surface and d... | 03/17/1998 |
| 5727138 | Method of and apparatus for generating three-dimensional model The present invention relates to a method for generating a three-dimensional model of a diagram based on a plane profile and coordinates of the diagram and an apparatus for implementing this method and is capable of generating a more realistic three-dimen... | 03/10/1998 |
| 5727140 | Character generating method and apparatus In a character generating method and apparatus for dividing each character pattern into a plurality of partial patterns, storing the partial patterns, selecting the proper partial patterns from the stored ones, and arranging the selected partial patterns ... | 03/10/1998 |
| 5721572 | Method of creating and using a four color device gamut descriptor A device gamut boundary surface in a device independent color space (DICS) is defined by a set of small triangles. Each triangle in the DICS corresponds to a triangle on the surface of a 3D or 4D color cube in a device dependent color space (DDCS). The tr... | 02/24/1998 |
| 5719598 | Graphics processor for parallel processing a plurality of fields of view for multiple video displays An image generator system for producing real time imagery from a digital database includes processors performing in sequence: scene data management, geometry processing, and video processing. The scene data management processor selects and organizes the d... | 02/17/1998 |
| 5717940 | Method of selecting a target document using features of an example page An example page taken from each document in a document database is processed by a page processor to yield an iconic representation for the example page. To form the iconic representation, the example page is segmented into text regions, line art regions, ... | 02/10/1998 |
