Method and apparatus for performing post-process antialiasing of polygon edges
Patent 6005580 Issued on December 21, 1999. Estimated Expiration Date: 
May 15, 2016. Estimated Expiration Date is calculated based on simple USPTO term provisions. It does not account for terminal disclaimers, term adjustments, failure to pay maintenance fees, or other factors which might affect the term of a patent.
May 15, 2016. Estimated Expiration Date is calculated based on simple USPTO term provisions. It does not account for terminal disclaimers, term adjustments, failure to pay maintenance fees, or other factors which might affect the term of a patent.Patent ReferencesTrue-perspective texture/shading processor Polygon renderer which determines the coordinates of polygon edges to sub-pixel resolution in the X,Y and Z coordinates directions Method and apparatus for simultaneously rendering multiple scanlines Method for scan converting shaded triangular polygons Method and apparatus for filling polygons Patent #: 5463723 InventorAssigneeApplicationNo. 648283 filed on 05/15/1996US Classes:345/428, Adjusting level of detail345/582, Texture345/600, Color bit data modification or conversion345/611Anti-aliasing or image smoothingExaminersPrimary: Nguyen, Phu K.Assistant: Vo, Cliff N. Attorney, Agent or FirmInternational ClassG06T 017/00AbstractA method and apparatus for performing post-process antialiasing of polygon edges. According to one aspect of the invention, a method is provided for modifying the color of a pixel in a texture mapped representation of an image generated from a plurality of polygons. According to this method, it is determined that an edge of one of the plurality of polygons intersects a scan line in the texture mapped representation at an intersection point. In addition, the pixel within which this intersection point lies is determined. The color for this pixel is identified by pixel data stored as part of the texture mapped representation. A filter is performed using the texture mapped representation as an input texture map by: 1) determining a texture point in the input texture map that corresponds to the intersection point; 2) performing a filter on texels in the input texture map identified by that texture point to determine a corrected color for the pixel; and 3) altering the pixel data stored as part of the texture mapped representation for the pixel containing the intersection point to indicate the corrected color. According to another aspect of the invention, the filter used in this method is either a linear filter, a bilinear filter, a quadratic filter, or a cubic filter. According to another aspect of the invention, the step of performing the filter is performed using the same hardware used for performing the texture mapping of the texture mapped representation.Other References
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