Procedurally defined texture maps
US9881391B2 · kind B2 · utility
Assignee
Inventors
Key dates
| Filing date | Oct 2, 2013 |
| Grant date | Jan 30, 2018 |
| Priority date | — |
| Expiry date | Feb 7, 2034 |
Classification
- Technology area (CPC G)Physics
- CPC primaryG06T15/04
- WIPO fieldComputer technology
- WIPO sectorElectrical engineering
Abstract
A procedural texture relates texel coordinates to color values through an arbitrary function, herein called a texel shader. The procedural texture is defined by a dimension, size, texel format and the texel shader. Texel coordinates are an input to the texel shader, which generates a color value for those texel coordinates. A renderer can be implemented either in hardware, such as part of a graphics processor, or in software as a computer program executed by a processor. The renderer samples from the procedural texture in response to texel coordinates, and evaluates the texel shader on demand. Filtering also can be applied automatically to results. The results of the texel shader invocations are stored in a texture cache to take advantage of spatial and temporal locality. Results are shared among threads, processes and the like through the texture cache.
Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.