Recirculating shade tree blender for a graphics system

US7176919B2 · kind B2 · utility

Assignee

• Nintendo Co., Ltd. · JP

Inventors

• Robert A. Drebin · Palo Alto, US
• Timothy J. Van Hook · Atherton, US
• Patrick Law · Milpitas, US
• Mark Leather · Saratoga, US
• Matthew Komsthoeft · Santa Clara, US

Key dates

• Filing date: Oct 4, 2005
• Grant date: Feb 13, 2007
• Expiry date: Oct 4, 2025

Classification

• Technology area (CPC G): Physics
• CPC primary: G06T15/50
• WIPO field: Computer technology
• WIPO sector: Electrical engineering

Abstract

A graphics system including a custom graphics and audio processor produces exciting 2D and 3D graphics and surround sound. A relatively low chip-footprint, versatile texture environment (TEV) processing subsystem is implemented in a pipelined graphics system circulates computed color and alpha data over multiple texture blending/shading cycles (stages). The texture-environment subsystem combines per-vertex lighting, textures and constant (rasterized) colors to form computed pixel color prior to fogging and final pixel blending. Blending operations for color (RGB) and alpha components are independently processed by a single sub-blend unit that is reused over multiple processing stages to combine multiple textures.