Blur Downscale via Scaler Rotator Unit
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Solution Overview
Problem
Generating special effects like blur on display devices for portable digital devices is power-intensive, challenging battery life while requiring significant processing power.
Innovation Solution
Offloading expensive image/video processing operations from the GPU to a scaler rotator unit, which downscaling, upscales, and composites image portions with a semi-transparent layer to create a blurred effect efficiently, reducing power consumption.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Manufacturing precision
If blur processing is performed using traditional GPU-based image processing operations, then the quality of the blurred effect is improved, but power consumption increases significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts the blur processing function from the GPU and implements it in the display pipeline using dedicated scaling circuits. This separation allows the GPU to focus on high-level rendering while the display pipeline handles the power-intensive blur operation using hardware-accelerated scaling, thereby reducing overall power consumption while maintaining blur quality
Solution Approach 2:
The patent creates a downscaled copy of the original image data through the scaling circuit, processes this copy to generate the blurred effect, and then composites it with the original image. This copying approach allows blur processing without requiring the GPU to perform computationally expensive operations on the full-resolution data
2Measurement precision
If high-resolution image processing is performed to maintain image quality, then image accuracy is improved, but processing time and power consumption increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the image processing task into two stages: first, the scaling circuit performs downscaling on the original image data to create a lower-resolution intermediate image; second, this intermediate image is processed and upscaled to generate the final blurred output. This segmentation allows efficient processing at lower resolutions while achieving the desired visual effect
Solution Approach 2:
The patent changes the resolution parameter during processing by downsampling the image data in the display pipeline, performing blur operations on the reduced data, and then restoring the original resolution through upsampling. This parameter transformation enables faster processing with acceptable visual quality
3Manufacturing precision
If special effects processing is performed on portable devices, then visual quality is improved, but battery life is reduced due to increased power consumption
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces the display pipeline as an intermediary between the GPU and the display output. This intermediary contains scaling circuits that perform blur processing using hardware-accelerated operations, reducing the computational burden on the GPU and thereby lowering overall power consumption while maintaining visual quality
Solution Approach 2:
The patent replaces software-based blur processing on the GPU with hardware-based scaling operations in the display pipeline. This substitution uses dedicated scaling circuits that can perform downscaling and upsampling operations more efficiently with lower power consumption than general-purpose GPU processing
Data Source
AI summary
Systems, apparatuses, and methods for generating a blur effect on a source image in a power-efficient manner. Pixels of the source image are averaged as they are read into pixel buffers, and then the source image is further downscaled by a first factor. Then, the downscaled source image is upscaled back to the original size, and then this processed image is composited with a semi-transparent image to create a blurred effect of the source image.