Hardware-assisted visibility-ordering algorithm
US6801215B1 · kind B1 · utility
Assignee
Inventors
Key dates
| Filing date | Nov 29, 2001 |
| Grant date | Oct 5, 2004 |
| Priority date | — |
| Expiry date | Mar 24, 2022 |
Classification
- Technology area (CPC G)Physics
- CPC primaryG06T15/40
- WIPO fieldComputer technology
- WIPO sectorElectrical engineering
Abstract
A hardware assisted system and method for computing a visibility ordering of a set of primitives and rendering the set of primitives is described, comprising the steps of and means for locating primitives potentially in a layer and removing occluded primitives from the layer. The hardware assisted locating step further includes the steps of initializing hardware buffers, initializing a layer number, assigning the layer number to each primitive, extracting a subset of the primitives from the set of primitives assigned to the layer number, and storing the subset of primitives in a color buffer. The hardware assisted removing step further includes the steps of reading the color buffer to locate all primitives of the layer number, traversing a pixel array of the subset of primitives to obtain primitive ids and depth complexities, testing depth complexity for each primitive using a stencil buffer, removing those primitives from the layer number if the depth complexity greater than one, re-inserting the primitives with a depth complexity greater than one back into the set of primitives, rendering the primitives of the layer number, incrementing the layer number, determining if any primit…
Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.