Patent · US Expired

Method and apparatus for transferring a brush pattern to a destination bitmap

US5717845A · kind A · utility

11Cited by
1References
38Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventors

Key dates

Filing dateDec 13, 1994
Grant dateFeb 10, 1998
Priority date
Expiry dateDec 13, 2014

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC G)Physics
  • CPC primaryG06T11/001
  • WIPO fieldComputer technology
  • WIPO sectorElectrical engineering

Abstract

Method and apparatus for transferring a brush pattern of pixels stored in memory to a destination bitmap in memory. The method transfers an entire row of the brush pattern to the scan line of a destination bitmap without checking each byte for the end of the row. Data bytes are fetched from the pixel row a predetermined number of times to transfer the pixel row in one pass. The transfer method preferably uses multiple-byte words on word-aligned boundaries of memory to reduce the number of fetches and writes and the number of memory cycles to execute the transfer. The transfer may include combining the pattern with a bitmap such as a source bitmap or the destination bitmap and transferring the combination to the destination bitmap. To accelerate the transfer process, a compiler is provided to compile, in response to an appropriate function call, run time code that is then immediately executed to transfer the pattern to the destination bitmap.

Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.