Patent · US Expired

Parallel initialization path for rasterization engine

US6940514B1 · kind B1 · utility

33Cited by
5References
20Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventors

Key dates

Filing dateApr 26, 2004
Grant dateSep 6, 2005
Priority date
Expiry dateApr 26, 2024

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC G)Physics
  • CPC primaryG06T1/20
  • WIPO fieldComputer technology
  • WIPO sectorElectrical engineering

Abstract

A system and method are disclosed for a rasterization pipeline with a parallel initialization path that may provide an increased rate of triangle processing. The edge walker, span walker, and sample generator modules of a rasterization pipeline may be modified to enable the next primitive in the sequence of primitives to be initialized, while the current primitive is processed. Consequently, these two processes that were done in series may now be done in parallel. Data transmitted between modules may be separated into initialization data (data the module needs to define a primitive) and primitive data (the processed output of each module). The second path is for additional initialization data, which allows each of these modules to receive the initialization data for the next primitive, while processing the primitive data for the current primitive.

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