Multi-View Rendering via Interleaved Pixel Block Processing

The rendering process is segmented into two distinct phases: a first pass that processes only geometry and depth information to generate depth buffers and depth-stencil masks, and a second pass that uses these masks to selectively render pixels for each view. This segmentation allows the system to achieve multi-view rendering capability while reducing per-pass computational load, as the first pass shares common geometry processing across all views and the second pass only processes pixels that actually contain primitive objects.

The first pass performs preliminary processing by generating depth buffers and depth-stencil masks before the actual view-specific rendering. These pre-computed depth masks identify which pixels contain primitive objects and will need rendering in subsequent passes. This preliminary action eliminates the need to re-process geometry information for each view, significantly reducing redundant computations and improving device performance.

The patent merges the rendering of multiple views by using a single first pass to process all geometry for all views simultaneously, generating shared depth buffers and depth-stencil masks. The second pass then merges the view-specific rendering operations by using these shared masks to efficiently render each view. This merging approach maintains comprehensive scene coverage across multiple views while dramatically improving rendering efficiency by eliminating redundant geometry processing.

The depth buffers and depth-stencil masks generated in the first pass are copied and reused across all second passes for different views. Instead of re-processing geometry for each view, the system creates view-specific render passes that leverage the pre-computed depth information. This copying approach ensures comprehensive scene coverage is maintained while avoiding the inefficiency of rendering the same geometric data multiple times.