Color-compression using automatic reduction of multi-sampled pixels
US7692659B1 · kind B1 · utility
Assignee
Inventors
Key dates
| Filing date | Nov 6, 2006 |
| Grant date | Apr 6, 2010 |
| Priority date | — |
| Expiry date | May 30, 2028 |
Classification
- Technology area (CPC G)Physics
- CPC primaryG06T11/40
- WIPO fieldComputer technology
- WIPO sectorElectrical engineering
Abstract
One embodiment of the present invention sets forth a technique for improving graphics rendering efficiency by processing pixels in a compressed format whenever possible within a multi-sampling graphics pipeline. Each geometric primitive is rasterized into fragments, corresponding to screen space pixels covered at least partially by the geometric primitive. Fragment coverage represents the pixel area covered by the geometric primitive and determines the weighted contribution of a fragment color to the corresponding screen space pixel. Samples associated with a given fragment are called sibling samples and have the same color value. The property of sibling samples having the same color value is exploited to compress and process multiple samples, thereby reducing the size of the associated logic and the amount of data written to and read from the frame buffer.
Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.