Method, system, and computer program product for anisotropic filtering and applications thereof

A computer program product comprising a computer useable medium having computer program logic recorded thereon for enabling a processor to generate a computer scene, said computer program logic comprising:

• a rendering procedure that enables the processor to render copies of an object having a plurality of vertices, at least some of the plurality of vertices having an associated set of texture coordinates used to select at least one texture sample from a texture image;
• a texture coordinate procedure that enables the processor to calculate sets of texture coordinates for at least some of the vertices of the object, the calculated sets of texture coordinates being calculated in accordance with at least one factor relating to anisotropy;
• and
• a blending procedure that enables the processor to blend according to a weighting factor a first copy of the object rendered in accordance with a first set of texture coordinates with a second copy of the object rendered in accordance with a second set of texture coordinates to produce a third copy of the object, the third copy of the object having a greater degree of filtering than the first copy and the second copy of the object.

A system for generating a computer scene, comprising:

• a frame buffer for storing data used to display the computer scene;
• a vertex operation module for operating on data used to render multiple copies of a geometric primitives that is associated with the computer scene;
• a texture memory for storing texture image data used to render the multiple copies of the geometric primitives that is associated with the computer scene;
• a rasterizer coupled to the frame buffer, the vertex operation module, and the texture memory, the rasterizer for rendering the multiple copies of the geometric primitives that is associated with the computer scene according to data received from the vertex operation module and the texture memory and for blending a rendered second copy of the geometric primitive according to a weighting factor with a rendered first copy of the geometric primitive that is stored in the frame buffer;
• and
• a level-of-detail register for storing level-of-detail data used to determine a first data set stored in the texture memory to be sampled by the rasterizer during the rendering of the first copy of the geometric primitives that is associated with the computer scene, the first data set based on a first set of coordinates, and to determine a second data set stored in the texture memory to be sampled by the rasterizer during the rendering of the second copy of the geometric primitive, the second data set based on a second set of coordinates, the second set of coordinates being displaced along an axis of anisotropy from the first set of coordinates.