Method and apparatus for adaptive hierarchical visibility in a tiled three-dimensional graphics architecture
US6525726B1 · kind B1 · utility
Assignee
Inventors
Key dates
| Filing date | Nov 2, 1999 |
| Grant date | Feb 25, 2003 |
| Priority date | — |
| Expiry date | Nov 2, 2019 |
Classification
- Technology area (CPC G)Physics
- CPC primaryG06T15/40
- WIPO fieldComputer technology
- WIPO sectorElectrical engineering
Abstract
A data processing system providing high performance three-dimensional graphics includes at least one system processor, chipset core logic, a graphics processor, and a Z-buffer. In one embodiment an adaptive hierarchical visibility (AHV) method performs occlusion-culling in a tiled 3D graphics hardware architecture. Polygon bins for each tile are bucket-sorted in order of increasing depth Z. Polygon bins are rendered starting with the bin closest to the viewer. After some number of bins are rendered, a single layer, hierarchical Z-buffer (HZ) may be constructed from the Z-buffer thus far accumulated for the rendered bins, if it would be cost effective to do so. Subsequent bins are rendered by first testing their polygons against the HZ buffer to see if they are hidden. Also described are an integrated circuit for implementing the AHV algorithm, and a computer-readable medium storing a data structure for implementing the AHV method and apparatus.
Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.