Stereoscopic Rendering Compression via Single Framebuffer Merging

The patent merges the rendering process by performing depth pre-pass and pixel shader execution only once for both viewports simultaneously. The same rendered image is then compressed and stored in a single framebuffer, eliminating the need to maintain separate framebuffer data for left and right eyes. This combining approach maintains stereoscopic quality while reducing memory bandwidth consumption by approximately half compared to traditional sequential rendering of both viewports.

The patent creates a compressed copy of the rendered image data in a single framebuffer that can be efficiently accessed for both left and right eye viewports. Instead of maintaining full-resolution separate framebuffers for each eye, the system stores one compressed framebuffer that serves both views, significantly reducing memory bandwidth and storage requirements while maintaining the necessary rendering accuracy through selective decompression when needed.

The patent introduces a framebuffer compression unit as an intermediary component between the rendering pipeline and memory storage. This compression unit processes rendered images in real-time, compressing them before storage and decompressing them when needed for display. This intermediary approach maintains compatibility with traditional rendering pipelines while significantly improving processing efficiency and reducing memory bandwidth requirements by eliminating the need to transfer and process duplicate data for both viewports.