Rasterization using two-dimensional tiles and alternating bins for improved rendering utilization
US6803916B2 · kind B2 · utility
Assignee
Inventors
Key dates
| Filing date | May 18, 2001 |
| Grant date | Oct 12, 2004 |
| Priority date | — |
| Expiry date | Jan 26, 2022 |
Classification
- Technology area (CPC G)Physics
- CPC primaryG06T11/40
- WIPO fieldComputer technology
- WIPO sectorElectrical engineering
Abstract
A system and method for rasterizing and rendering graphics data is disclosed. Vertices may be grouped to form primitives such as triangles, which are rasterized using two-dimensional arrays of samples bins. Individual samples may be selected from the bins according to different criteria such as memory bank allocation to improve utilization of the system's rendering pipeline. Since the arrays may have more bins than the number of evaluation units in the rendering pipeline, the samples from the bins may be stored to FIFO memories to allow invalid or empty samples (those outside the primitive being rendered) to be removed. The samples may then be filtered to form pixels that are displayable to form an image on a display device.
Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.