Efficient antialiased dot rasterization
AssigneeSun Microsystems, Inc.
InventorsNandini Ramani, Michael A. Wasserman, Michael G. Lavelle, Mark E. Pascual, Kevin Tang, Daniel M. Chao
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Abstract
A graphics system may be configured to render anti-aliased dots in terms of samples and to generate pixels by filtering the samples. The pixels are supplied to one or more display devices. The means used to generate the samples may perform the computation of radial distance at positions on a grid in a rendering coordinate space, and interpolate estimates for the radial distances of samples around the dot as needed based on the radii at the grid positions.
Claims24
A method for generating a dot on a display device, the method comprising:
- receiving a graphics command specifying a dot center for the dot;
- determining a set of candidate render bins which intersect a neighborhood of the dot center;
- computing first radial extent values for corners of one of the candidate render bins with respect to the dot center;
- interpolating estimated radial extent values for sample positions in said one candidate render bin with respect to the dot center based on the first radial extent values of said corners of said one candidate render bin;
- computing sample values for samples associated with said sample positions, wherein said sample values depend on the estimated radial extent values of the sample positions;
- and
- generating pixels based on said sample values, and transmitting the pixels to the display device.
A graphics system configured to generate a dot on a display device, the graphics system comprising:
- a rendering unit configured to (a) receive a graphics command specifying a dot center for the dot, (b) compute first radial extent values indicating radial extent from the dot center to a plurality of first positions in a neighborhood of the dot center, (c) interpolating estimated radial extent values at sample positions in the neighborhood based on the first radial extent values, (d) computing sample values for samples corresponding to said sample positions, wherein said sample values depend on the estimated radial extent values of the sample positions;
- a pixel computation unit configured to operate on the sample values to generate output pixels for transmission to a display device.
A memory medium configured to store program instructions, wherein the program instructions are executable by a processor to implement:
- receiving a graphics command specifying a dot center for a dot;
- computing first radial extent values corresponding to corners of a bin near a center of the dot, wherein the first radial extent values indicate radial extent of said corners with respect to the dot center;
- interpolating estimated radial extent values for sample positions in said bin with respect to the dot center based on the first radial extent values of the corners of said bin;
- computing sample values for samples at said sample positions, wherein said sample values depend on the estimated radial extent values of the sample positions;
- and
- filtering the sample values to generate output pixels for transmission to an output device.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.