Patent · US Expired

Method and apparatus for multipass pixel processing

US6483505B1 · kind B1 · utility

42Cited by
4References
24Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventors

Key dates

Filing dateMar 17, 2000
Grant dateNov 19, 2002
Priority date
Expiry dateMar 17, 2020

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC G)Physics
  • CPC primaryG06T15/005
  • WIPO fieldComputer technology
  • WIPO sectorElectrical engineering

Abstract

A method and apparatus for multipass pixel processing is presented. A command stream that includes a plurality of drawing commands is received where multipass drawing commands included in the stream include a number of sets of state information and one or more graphics primitives. For a multipass pixel processing operation, the graphics pipeline that performs the pixel processing is first configured using a first set of state information included in the sets of state information for the multipass operation. Once the graphics pipeline has been configured, at least a portion of the processing to be performed for the drawing command is performed using the graphics pipeline as configured by this first set of state information. The resultant data produced through this processing is stored as intermediate data. This may be referred to as the first pass in the multipass operation. The graphics pipeline is then reconfigured using a subsequent set of state information corresponding to the multipass drawing command. Once the graphics pipeline has been reconfigured, the second pass takes place. The second pass includes processing the portion of the graphics data processed during the first pas…

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