# US 8,570,321 B2 · Rasterization engine and three-dimensional graphics system for rasterizing in order adapted to characteristics of polygon > Agents: this data is available as JSON from the patentgrep API and MCP server — see https://patentgrep.com/llms.txt - Number: US 8,570,321 B2 - Document ID: US8570321B2 - Status: Granted - Kind: B2 - Application number: 13/662,609 - Filed: 2012-10-29 - Published: 2013-02-28 - Granted: 2013-10-29 - Earliest claimed: 2007-12-07 - Assignees: Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. - Applicants: Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. - Inventors: Chun Ho Kim - Web page: https://patentgrep.com/patent/US8570321B2 ## CPC - G06T 15/005: {General purpose rendering architectures} - G06T 11/40: Filling planar surfaces by adding surface attributes, e.g. adding colours or textures - G06T: IMAGE DATA PROCESSING OR GENERATION, IN GENERAL ## Abstract A three-dimensional graphics system is provided. The three-dimensional graphics system rasterizes each of a plurality of polygons generated from vertexes in an order adapted to characteristics of each polygon. The three-dimensional graphics system includes a rasterization engine including a polygon setup unit receiving the vertexes and generating the polygons and rasterization information for each polygon, and a rasterizer rasterizing pixels using the rasterization information received from the polygon setup unit in an order adapted to the characteristics of each polygon. Accordingly, the coherence of the pixels is increased and the hit ratio of cache memory is thus increased. As a result, the performance of the three-dimensional graphics system is improved. With the increase of the hit ratio of the cache memory, buss traffic in the system is reduced and power consumption is thus reduced. ## Claims ### Claim 1 A rasterization engine comprising: at least one computer processor coupled to at least one computer memory that cooperatively form a plurality of computer elements comprising: a polygon setup unit configured to receive vertexes defined by viewport mapping and generate polygons and rasterization information for each polygon; a rasterizer configured to generate pixels using the rasterization information received from the polygon setup unit and perform rasterization in an order adapted to characteristics of each polygon; and an order determiner configured to receive information about the characteristics of each polygon from the rasterizer, determine the rasterization order for the polygon based on the information, and transmit the rasterization order to the rasterizer, wherein the rasterizer receives entire of the rasterization information for each polygon before performing rasterization for each polygon. ### Claim 2 (depends on 1) The rasterization engine of claim 1, wherein the rasterization information comprises the characteristics of each polygon including at least one characteristic among use or non-use of texture mapping, use or non-use of alpha blending, and relationship with an adjacent polygon. ### Claim 3 (depends on 2) The rasterization engine of claim 2, wherein the order determiner: stores information about a first position at which rasterization of a previous polygon has finished, and determines the rasterization order such that rasterization of a current polygon is performed from a second position adjacent to the first position toward a third position farthest from the second position of the current polygon. ### Claim 4 (depends on 3) The rasterization engine of claim 3, wherein the order determiner: stores order information about different types of rasterization order in advance, alternately selects the different types of rasterization order, and determines a selected type of order as the order adapted to characteristics of a polygon to be rasterized. ### Claim 5 (depends on 4) The rasterization engine of claim 4, wherein the different types of order comprise a downward order and an upward order. ### Claim 6 (depends on 4) The rasterization engine of claim 4, wherein the order determiner stores information about an order used for a previous rasterization. ### Claim 7 (depends on 4) The rasterization engine of claim 4, wherein the order determiner receives information about an order used for a previous rasterization from the rasterizer. ### Claim 8 A rasterization engine comprising: at least one computer processor coupled to at least one computer memory that cooperatively form a plurality of computer elements comprising: a polygon setup unit configured to receive vertexes defined by viewport mapping and generate polygons and rasterization information for each polygon; a rasterizer configured to generate pixels using the rasterization information received from the polygon setup unit and perform rasterization in an order adapted to characteristics of each polygon; and an order determiner configured to receive information about the characteristics of each polygon from the rasterizer, determine the rasterization order for the polygon based on the information, and transmit the rasterization order to the rasterizer, wherein the rasterizer receives necessary part of the rasterization information for each polygon during performing rasterization for each polygon. ### Claim 9 (depends on 8) The rasterization engine of claim 8, wherein the rasterization information comprises the characteristics of each polygon including at least one characteristic among use or non-use of texture mapping, use or non-use of alpha blending, and relationship with an adjacent polygon. ### Claim 10 (depends on 9) The rasterization engine of claim 9, wherein the order determiner: stores information about a first position at which rasterization of a previous polygon has finished, and determines the rasterization order such that rasterization of a current polygon is performed from a second position adjacent to the first position toward a third position farthest from the second position of the current polygon. ### Claim 11 (depends on 9) The rasterization engine of claim 9, wherein the order determiner: stores order information about different types of rasterization order in advance, alternately selects the different types of rasterization order, and determines a selected type of order as the order adapted to characteristics of a polygon to be rasterized. ### Claim 12 (depends on 11) The rasterization engine of claim 11, wherein the different types of order comprise a downward order and an upward order. ### Claim 13 (depends on 11) The rasterization engine of claim 11, wherein the order determiner stores information about an order used for a previous rasterization. ### Claim 14 (depends on 11) The rasterization engine of claim 11, wherein the order determiner receives information about an order used for a previous rasterization from the rasterizer. ### Claim 15 A rasterization engine comprising: at least one computer processor coupled to at least one computer memory that cooperatively form a plurality of computer elements comprising: a triangle setup unit configured to receive vertexes defined by viewport mapping and generate triangles and rasterization information for each triangle; polygons; a rasterizer configured to generate a group of pixels in at least one triangle using the rasterization information received from the triangle setup unit; and an order determiner configured to receive information about the characteristics of each triangle from the rasterizer, determine the rasterization order for the pixels based on the information, and transmit the rasterization order to the rasterizer.