Image synthesizing system and game playing apparatus using the same

A game playing apparatus comprising:

• a player's control unit;
• and
• an image synthesizing system responsive to input signals from said player's control unit and to a given game program for forming and displaying a game image on a display,
• said image synthesizing system comprising:
• 3-D space processing means for perspectively projecting a 3-D object onto a projection plane of a view point coordinate system from a viewpoint, the 3-D object representing a shape model of a plurality of shape models formed by a combination of polygons in a virtual 3-D space;
• texture information storage means for previously storing texture information relating to images on the polygons of said 3-D object;
• and
• image forming means coupled to the 3-D space processing means and the texture information storage means for reading said texture information corresponding to the polygons of said perspectively projected 3-D object from said texture information storage means by mapping the texture information onto the polygons for forming and displaying the game image on the display,
• said 3-D space processing means comprising:
• an object data storage unit for storing object data of said 3-D object, said object data being represented by the plurality of shape models having different degrees of precision;
• an object data reading unit coupled to said object data storage unit for selecting a series of said object data of increasing degrees of precision as said 3-D object and said view point draw closer to each other, and for reading said object data from said object data storage unit;
• and
• a 3-D calculation unit coupled to said object data reading unit that responds to the input signals from the player's control unit and to the given game program for calculating a predetermined game, for controlling said object data reading unit to read said object data, for positioning in the virtual 3-D space the 3-D object by positioning the object data read from the object storage unit and for perspectively projecting said 3-D object onto the projection plane of the view-point coordinate system, the object data being read from the object data storage unit and corresponding to said 3-D object,
• said texture information storage means storing the texture information of each of the polygons, the polygons forming respective members of the plurality of shape models based on different degrees of precision of said 3-D object, and
• said image forming means for reading the texture information from said texture information storage means, the texture information corresponding to the polygons that form the shape model of the plurality of shape models, the shape model having a precision corresponding to the polygons of said perspectively projected 3-D object, said image forming means synthesizing the game image to be displayed by mapping said texture information onto the polygons.