Method and apparatus for creating and transferring a bitmap
US5659336A · kind A · utility
Assignee
Inventors
Key dates
| Filing date | Oct 24, 1994 |
| Grant date | Aug 19, 1997 |
| Priority date | — |
| Expiry date | Oct 24, 2014 |
Classification
- Technology area (CPC G)Physics
- CPC primaryG09G5/243
- WIPO fieldAudio-visual technology
- WIPO sectorElectrical engineering
Abstract
In response to a command to draw text on a screen, a computer's operating system creates a superglyph bitmap that combines text and a background color into a single bitmap. The bitmap is then transferred to screen memory by either a graphics driver or the operating system itself, depending upon whether the graphics driver has special characteristics for displaying the bitmap such as monochrome-to-color conversion. With this division of tasks, graphics drivers may be simplified to handle tasks for which they are uniquely qualified and the operating system handles more general tasks such a creating the bitmap. The concept may also be applied to other types of bitmaps, wherever it is advantageous to create bitmaps with the operating system and transfer bitmaps with either a graphics driver or the operating system.
Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.