System and method for clearing depth and color buffers in a real-time graphics rendering system
US6982713B2 · kind B2 · utility
Assignee
Inventors
Key dates
| Filing date | Jan 13, 2003 |
| Grant date | Jan 3, 2006 |
| Priority date | — |
| Expiry date | Dec 5, 2023 |
Classification
- Technology area (CPC G)Physics
- CPC primaryG06T15/405
- WIPO fieldComputer technology
- WIPO sectorElectrical engineering
Abstract
A method and system for clearing depth and color buffers in a real time graphics rendering system 10. The method and system are able to improve both depth and color buffer clearing. The method and system may utilize a frame flag, a depth clearing module, and a fast color and frame flag clearing module. The system assigns a frame flag to each pixel, which is used to determine whether the current Z value for the pixel is valid. The frame flag may be attached to Z value in the depth buffer. Instead of filling entire depth and color buffers with background values, the system only fills the holes that were not drawn in the previous frame. The fast color and frame flag clearing module traverses a rectangular area, tile by tile, where a tile is a block of pixels, to determine whether each pixel is background by checking the frame flags that are read from the depth buffer. If at least one pixel of a tile is background, the module updates those pixels' color with background color by sending requests to memory interface.
Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.