Graphics processing apparatus, methods and computer program products using minimum-depth occlusion culling and zig-zag traversal

Abstract

A plurality of rows of tiles is defined in a graphics display field comprising a plurality of rows of pixels, each tile including pixels from at least two rows of pixels. Occlusion flags for respective tiles of a row of tiles for a graphics primitive are set based on whether respective representative depth values for the tiles of the row of tiles meet an occlusion criterion. Pixels in rows of pixels corresponding to the row of tiles are processed for the graphics primitive in a row-by-row manner responsive to the occlusion flags. The processing may include processing rows of pixels in the row of tiles using a zig-zag traversal algorithm.

Description

[0001] related application [0002] This application claims priority to U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 60 / 434,900, filed December 20, 2002, to Akenine-Möller et al., entitled "ZIGZAG Z-Min Culling," which is hereby incorporated by reference its entire contents. technical field [0003] The present invention relates to computer graphics, and more particularly, to a graphics processing method, device and computer program product. Background technique [0004] Mobile phones are used all over the world. Images can also be rendered on these devices since they are usually equipped with a display screen. This likely makes mobile phones the most widespread rendering platform today. However, such rendering is usually limited to very simple 2D graphics, and until recently 3D graphics were not available in this field. The growing interest in mobile graphics can be seen in upcoming standards development activities such as Java Specification Request 184 (see, for example, ww...

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Problems solved by technology

It should be noted that in order to update z max , all z-values ​​for that shard must be read, which can be expensive

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