System for and method of performing an opacity calculation in a 3D graphics system
AssigneeBroadcom Corporation
InventorCharles Monahan
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A system, device and method are disclosed for predicting the opacity of primitives used to produce an image using one or more equations, prior to producing an image. More specifically, the present invention relates to a 3D device adapted to produce an image comprising an opacity estimate predictor adapted to predict opacity of at least one primitive using at least one first equation and further adapted to reject the primitive if the predicted opacity is equal to a minimum value.
Claims29
A 3D device adapted to produce an image comprising an opacity estimate predictor adapted to predict opacity of at least one primitive using at least one first equation derived from at least one second equation used to compute opacity.
A 3D core for producing an image using at least two primitives comprising:
- an opacity estimate predictor adapted to predict opacity of the primitives using at least one first formula and reject at least one of the primitives if said predicted opacity is equal to a minimum value;
- a register adapted to store a list of said non-rejected primitives;
- and
- a texture device adapted to compute the opacity of the non-rejected primitives using at least one second formula.
A method for producing an image comprising:
- predicting opacity of data used to produce the image using at least one first equation;
- rejecting select data based at least in part on said predicted opacity, forming a group of non-rejected data;
- and
- computing opacity for said group using at least one second equation;
- and
- blending said group, forming the image.
A method of computing opacity of a plurality of primitives used to produce an image comprising:
- (a) predicting an opacity value of the primitives using at least one first equation;
- (b) rejecting at least one of the primitives based at least in part on said predicted opacity value;
- (c) generating a primitive list of first non-rejected primitives;
- (c) identifying at least one of the primitives from said list for at least one display line of the image;
- (d) ordering said first non-rejected primitives;
- (e) rejecting at least one of said first non-rejected primitives based at least partially on said predicted opacity value forming second-non-rejected primitives;
- (f) computing opacity for said second non-rejected primitives using at least one second equation;
- and
- (g) blending all said second non-rejected primitives, producing the image.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.