Rendering pipeline for surface elements

Abstract

A rendering system pipeline includes a memory storing shape and shade attributes of a surface of the object. The attributes are arranged as an octree in the memory. The octree includes a plurality of nodes arranged at a plurality of levels, each node storing a plurality of zero-dimensional n-tuples, each n-tuple locally approximating the shape and shade attributes of a portion of the surface of the graphic object, and the n-tuples having a sampling resolution of an image space. A plurality of parallel processing pipelines are connected the memory. The pipelines project the shape and shade attributes of the octree to an image plane having a selected orientation by traversing the n-tuples of the nodes of the octree from a lowest resolution level to a highest resolution level.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.