Patent · US Expired

LUT-based system for simulating sensor-assisted perception of terrain

US6735557B1 · kind B1 · utility

30Cited by
5References
16Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventors

Key dates

Filing dateOct 15, 1999
Grant dateMay 11, 2004
Priority date
Expiry dateOct 15, 2019

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC G)Physics
  • CPC primaryG06T19/006
  • WIPO fieldComputer technology
  • WIPO sectorElectrical engineering

Abstract

A set of specially-configured LUT's are used in a rasterizing portion of a graphics system for simulating Sensor-assisted Perception of Terrain (SaPOT) so that simulation of the image produced by a given sensor can proceed rapidly and with good accuracy at a per-texel level of resolution. More specifically, terrain texels-defining memory is provided with a plurality of addressable texel records where each record contains: (a) one or more material identification fields (MID's); (b) one or more mixture fields (MIX's) for defining mixture proportions for the materials; and (c) slope-defining data for defining a surface slope or normal of the corresponding texel. A sky-map LUT is provided for simulating the act of looking up to the sky along the normal surface vector of a given texel to thereby obtain a reading of the sky's contribution of illumination to that terrain texel. A reflectance LUT is provided for simulating the act of reflecting filtered radiation (light) off the material surface of the given terrain texel to thereby obtain a reading of the amount of light that the surface of the texel will reflect. The reflectance and sky contribution factors are multiplied to obtain a per…

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