628 results about "Graphic system" patented technology

Methods, systems, devices and computer program code (software) products operable within a computer graphics system or other computer system enable quasi-Monte Carlo (QMC) light transport simulation by efficient ray tracing.

A graphics system that may be shared between multiple display channels includes a frame buffer, an arbiter, and two pixel output buffers. The arbiter arbitrates between the display channels' requests for display information from the frame buffer and forwards a selected request to the frame buffer. The frame buffer is divided into a first and a second portion. The arbiter alternates display channel requests for data between the first and second portions of the frame buffer. The frame buffer outputs display information in response to receiving the forwarded request, and pixels corresponding to this display information are stored in the output buffers. The arbiter selects which request to forward to the frame buffer based on a relative state of neediness of each of the requesting display channels.

A method and apparatus for creating motion blur, depth of field, and screen door effects when rendering three-dimensional graphics data are disclosed. A graphics system configured with a graphics processor, a super-sampled sample buffer, and a sample-to-pixel calculation unit is disclosed. The graphics processor may be configured to use a sample mask to select different subsets of sample coordinates to be rendered for a particular frame. Each subset may be rendered applying a different set of attributes, and the resulting samples may then be stored together in the sample buffer. The sample-to-pixel calculation unit may be configured to filter the samples into output pixels that are provided to a display device. The attributes that may be changed from subset to subset include the viewpoint, the time at which objects in the data are rendered, which objects or geometric primitives in the data are rendered, the position of objects in the data, the color of objects in the data, the transparency of objects in the data, and the shape of objects in the data.

A method for estimating rendering times for three-dimensional graphics objects and scenes is disclosed. The rendering times may be estimated in real-time, thus allowing a graphics system to alter rendering parameters (such as level of detail and number of samples per pixel) to maintain a predetermined minimum frame rate. Part of the estimation may be performed offline to reduce the time required to perform the final estimation. The method may also detect whether the objects being rendered are pixel fill limited or polygon overhead limited. This information may allow the graphics system to make more intelligent choices as to which rendering parameters should be changed to achieve the desired minimum frame rate. A software program configured to efficiently estimate rendering times is also disclosed.

A graphics system that is configured to utilize a sample buffer and a plurality of parallel sample-to-pixel calculation units, wherein the sample-pixel calculation units are configured to access different portions of the sample buffer in parallel. The graphics system may include a graphics processor, a sample buffer, and a plurality of sample-to-pixel calculation units. The graphics processor is configured to receive a set of three-dimensional graphics data and render a plurality of samples based on the graphics data. The sample buffer is configured to store the plurality of samples for the sample-to-pixel calculation units, which are configured to receive and filter samples from the sample buffer to create output pixels. Each of the sample-to-pixel calculation units are configured to generate pixels corresponding to a different region of the image. The region may be a vertical or horizontal stripe of the image, or a rectangular portion of the image. Each region may overlap the other regions of the image to prevent visual aberrations.

A hardware-accelerated recirculating programmable texture blender/shader arrangement circulates computed color and alpha data over multiple texture blending/shading cycles (stages) to provide multi-texturing and other effects. Up to sixteen independently programmable consecutive stages, forming a chain of blending operations, are supported for applying multiple textures to a single object in a single rendering pass.

A graphics system including a custom graphics and audio processor produces exciting 2D and 3D graphics and surround sound. The system includes a graphics and audio processor including a 3D graphics pipeline and an audio digital signal processor. The graphics processor includes an embedded frame buffer for storing frame data prior to sending the frame data to an external location, such as main memory. A copy pipeline is provided which converts the data from one format to another format prior to writing the data to the external location. The conversion may be from one RGB color format to another RGB color format, from one YUV format to another YUV format, from an RGB color format to a YUV color format, or from a YUV color format to an RGB color format. The formatted data is either transferred to a display buffer, for use by the video interface, or to a texture buffer, for use as a texture by the graphics pipeline in a subsequent rendering process.

A graphics system including a custom graphics and audio processor produces exciting 2D and 3D graphics and surround sound. The system includes a graphics and audio processor including a 3D graphics pipeline and an audio digital signal processor. The system achieves highly efficient full-scene anti-aliasing by implementing a programmable-location super-sampling arrangement and using a selectable-weight vertical-pixel support area blending filter. For a 2×2 pixel group (quad), the locations of three samples within each super-sampled pixel are individually selectable. A twelve-bit multi-sample coverage mask is used to determine which of twelve samples within a pixel quad are enabled based on the portions of each pixel occupied by a primitive fragment and any pre-computed z-buffering. Each super-sampled pixel is filtered during a copy-out operation from a local memory to an external frame buffer using a pixel blending filter arrangement that combines seven samples from three vertically arranged pixels. Three samples are taken from the current pixel, two samples are taken from a pixel immediately above the current pixel and two samples are taken from a pixel immediately below the current pixel. A weighted average is then computed based on the enabled samples to determine the final color for the pixel. The weight coefficients used in the blending filter are also individually programmable. De-flickering of thin one-pixel tall horizontal lines for interlaced video displays is also accomplished by using the pixel blending filter to blend color samples from pixels in alternate scan lines.

A memory system and methods of operating the same that drastically increase the efficiency in memory use and allocation in graphics systems. In a graphics system using a tiled architecture, instead of pre-allocating a fixed amount of memory for each tile, the invention dynamically allocates varying amounts of memory per tile depending on the demand. In one embodiment all or a portion of the available memory is divided into smaller pages that are preferably equal in size. Memory allocation is done by page based on the amount of memory required for a given tile.

A method and graphics system configured to perform real-time morphing of three-dimensional (3D) objects that have been compressed into one or more streams of 3D graphics data using geometry compression techniques. In one embodiment, the graphics system has one or more decompression units, each configured to receive and decompress the graphics data. The decompression units are configured to convey the decompressed data corresponding to the morphs to a graphics processor that is configured to apply weighting factors to the graphics data. The weighted results are combined to yield a morphed object that is rendered to generate one or more frames of a morphing sequence. The weighting factors may be adjusted and reapplied to yield additional frames for the morphing sequence. A method for encoding 3D graphics data to allow morphing decompression is also disclosed.

A graphics system comprises pixel calculation units and a sample buffer which stores a two-dimensional field of samples. Each pixel calculation unit selects positions in the two-dimensional field at which pixel values (e.g. red, green, blue) are computed. The pixel computation positions are selected to compensate for image distortions introduced by a display device and/or display surface. Non-uniformities in a viewer's perceived intensity distribution from a display surface (e.g. hot spots, overlap brightness) are corrected by appropriately scaling pixel values prior to transmission to display devices. Two or more sets of pixel calculation units driving two or more display devices adjust their respective pixel computation centers to align the edges of two or more displayed images. Physical barriers prevent light spillage at the interface between any two of the display images. Separate pixel computation positions may be used for distinct colors to compensate for color distortions.

Coherence of displayed images is provided for a graphics processing systems having multiple processors operating to render different portions of a current image in parallel. As each processor completes rendering of its portion of the current image, it generates a local ready event, then pauses its rendering operations. A synchronizing agent detects the local ready event and generates a global ready event after all of the graphics processors have generated local ready events. The global ready signal is transmitted to each graphics processor, which responds by resuming its rendering activity.

The present invention relates to a parallel pipeline graphics system. The parallel pipeline graphics system includes a back-end configured to receive primitives and combinations of primitives (i.e., geometry) and process the geometry to produce values to place in a frame buffer for rendering on screen. Unlike prior single pipeline implementation, some embodiments use two or four parallel pipelines, though other configurations having 2^n pipelines may be used. When geometry data is sent to the back-end, it is divided up and provided to one of the parallel pipelines. Each pipeline is a component of a raster back-end, where the display screen is divided into tiles and a defined portion of the screen is sent through a pipeline that owns that portion of the screen's tiles. In one embodiment, each pipeline comprises a scan converter, a hierarchical-Z unit, a z buffer logic, a rasterizer, a shader, and a color buffer logic.

A method for rasterizing a graphic primitive (120) in a graphics system generates, starting from graphic primitive description data, pixel data for the graphic primitive, the graphics system comprising a memory which is divided up into a plurality of blocks (a, a+1, b, b+1) which are each associated with a predetermined one of a plurality of areas on a mapping screen (114). Each block of the plurality of blocks (a, a+1, b, b+1) is associated with a memory page in the memory. The method includes scanning the pixels associated with the graphic primitive (120) in one of the plurality of blocks (a) into which the graphic primitive extends, repeating the preceding steps until all of the pixels associated with the graphic primitive have been scanned in each of the plurality of blocks into which the graphic primitive extends, and outputting the pixel data.

A computer graphics system provides for processing image data including Z data for use in displaying three-dimensional images on a display unit. The system includes: a depth buffer providing for temporary storage of Z data; and a graphics processing unit having a graphics engine for generating image data including Z data, and a memory interface unit communicatively coupled to the graphics engine and communicatively coupled to the depth buffer via a depth buffer interface. The graphics processing unit is operative to compress at least a portion of the generated Z data, to write the compressed portion of Z data to the depth buffer via the depth buffer interface in a compressed format, to read portions of compressed Z data from the depth buffer via the depth buffer interface, and to decompress the compressed Z data read from the buffer. An advantage of the present invention is that effective Z data bandwidth through the depth buffer interface is maximized in order to facilitate fast depth buffer access operations.

A graphics system including a custom graphics and audio processor produces exciting 2D and 3D graphics and surround sound. The system includes a graphics and audio processor including a 3D graphics pipeline and an audio digital signal processor. The graphics pipeline processes graphics commands at different rates depending upon the type of operation being performed. This makes it difficult to synchronize pipeline operations with external operations (e.g., a graphics processor with a main processor). To solve this problem, a synchronization token including a programmable data message is inserted into a graphics command stream sent to a graphics pipeline. At a predetermined point near the bottom of the pipeline, the token is captured and a signal is generated indicated the token has arrived. The graphics command producer can look at the captured token to determine which of multiple possible tokens has been captured, and can use the information to synchronize a task with the graphics pipeline. Applications include maintaining memory coherence in memory shared between the 3D graphics pipeline and a graphics command producer.

A method and computer graphics system capable of super-sampling and performing programmable real-time filtering or convolution are disclosed. In one embodiment, the computer graphics system may comprise a graphics processor, a sample buffer, and a sample-to-pixel calculation unit. The graphics processor may be configured to generate a plurality of samples. The sample buffer, which is coupled to the graphics processor, is configured to store the samples and may be configured to double-buffer at least part of the stored samples. The sample-to-pixel calculation unit is programmable to select a variable number of stored samples from the sample buffer to filter into an output pixel. The sample-to-pixel calculation unit performs the filter process in real-time, and may be programmable to use a number of different filter types in.a single frame. The sample buffer may be super-sampled, and the samples may be positioned according to a regular grid, a perturbed regular grid, or a stochastic grid.