System for accessing graphic data in a SIMD processing environment
US5457779A · kind A · utility
Assignee
Inventor
Key dates
| Filing date | Jan 15, 1993 |
| Grant date | Oct 10, 1995 |
| Priority date | — |
| Expiry date | Jan 15, 2013 |
Classification
- Technology area (CPC G)Physics
- CPC primaryG06T15/80
- WIPO fieldComputer technology
- WIPO sectorElectrical engineering
Abstract
An electronic logic and computer implemented apparatus and method for accessing graphic geometric data within a computer display system utilizing an SIMD environment. The present invention spreads the vertex data structure of geometric primitives across multiple memories allowing much higher bandwidth access into the data structure for greater performance. The present invention eliminates branches from the processing of triangle and quadrilateral primitives allowing full utilization of SIMD processors. The present invention utilizes an indirection circuit and software to control the order of coupling of these memory units to the inputs of specialized graphic processors. Therefore, the indirection mechanism allows a geometric data structure to be spread across multiple memories in a multi-memory/multi-bus environment with indirection across these multiple busses and memories. The present invention provides full utilization of a SIMD processor processing triangles or quadrilaterals and performs splitting of quads and ordering of triangle vertices in hardware.
Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.