Patent · US Expired

Method and system for efficiently drawing subdivision surfaces for 3D graphics

US6078331A · kind A · utility

84Cited by
5References
31Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventors

Key dates

Filing dateSep 30, 1996
Grant dateJun 20, 2000
Priority date
Expiry dateSep 30, 2016

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC A)Human Necessities
  • CPC primaryA63F2300/663
  • WIPO fieldComputer technology
  • WIPO sectorElectrical engineering

Abstract

A process for efficiently drawing subdivision surfaces. The present invention operates within a computer system for visually displaying 3 dimensional (3D) surfaces on a display. The present invention pulls polygons from a polygon mesh of a 3D surface. The polygons are stored into a 2 dimensional array such that the vertices of the polygons occupy nodes of the 2 dimensional array and are readily accessed. The polygons are subsequently divided into a plurality of resulting polygons. The resulting polygons are then sent to a graphics pipeline, wherein the graphics pipeline renders the resulting polygons into a 3D image on the computer display.

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