Computer graphics processing and selective visual display system – Computer graphics processing – Three-dimension
Reexamination Certificate
1999-05-03
2002-10-29
Vo, Cliff N. (Department: 2671)
Computer graphics processing and selective visual display system
Computer graphics processing
Three-dimension
Reexamination Certificate
active
06473081
ABSTRACT:
COPYRIGHT DISCLAIMER
A portion of the disclosure of this patent document contains material which is subject to copyright protection. The copyright owner has no objection to the facsimile reproduction by anyone of the patent disclosure, as its appears in the Patent and Trademark Office patent files or records, but otherwise reserves all copyright rights whatsoever.
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to displaying computer graphics, and in particular, to representing relationship between hierarchically related graphical components.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Computer generated 3-D animations enrich a wide range of human experience, captivating audiences at the movie theaters, gluing gamers to their personal computers, and embarking home buyers on virtual tours of new homes. To generate 3-D animations, a 3-D artist creates 3-D computer models of the objects. These models are used to emulate the movement, color, and shape of animated objects, from a dancing baby to space ships trekking through the universe.
3-D models are often composed of graphical components that represent the shapes and surfaces that make up modeled objects. A graphical component is a set of data, procedures, or combination thereof used to represent a feature of a graphical object. A graphical component may include multiple other graphical components. For example, a model of the four outside walls of a simple house has four graphical components. Each represents one of four rectangles that come together like the sides of a box. The interior plane of a rectangle represents the surface of a wall. Each graphical component that represents a rectangle further includes two other graphical components, one that defines spatial aspects of the rectangle, and another that defines how the light is reflected from the depicted wall's surface.
A graphical component that defines how light is reflected from a surface is referred to as a material. A material defines various properties of a surface, such as how light is reflected from a surface under normal outdoor light conditions (“diffuse property”) or under normal indoor conditions (“ambient property”), and its texture (“bump property”), that is, whether the surface is smooth, bumpy, or gritty.
There are a variety of techniques used to define properties. One technique is to associate a property with a set of values. For example, three values may represent the amount of red, green, and blue in the color of a material's diffuse property.
Another technique for defining material properties is to use a map to affect a material property. A map is a graphical component that defines patterns, such as checkers, zebra stripes, marble mottling, or even photographic images. There are two broad categories of maps, bitmaps and procedure maps. A procedure map is a set procedures used to generate a pattern, such as a fractal pattern.
When a map is associated with a particular material property, a particular manipulation is performed to affect the material property. A manipulation, as used herein, is a set of operations applied to two or more graphical components. For example, a material may define a red surface. To give the red surface a brick wall like appearance, a brick lattice map that depicts joints in a brick wall (i.e. the mortar between bricks) is assigned to affect the diffuse property of the material. The material and the map are then manipulated together to render a brick wall like surface by superimposing the brick joints upon the red surface.
A 3-D artist may use 3-D “modeling software” to build 3-D models and to animate them. An important function of modeling software is to provide a user interface for receiving input from a 3-D artist that specifies the properties of graphical components, and to render the graphical components so that the artist may see what they create.
FIG. 1
shows a conventional graphical user interface (“GUI”) for building graphical components. A GUI is visual display that allows a user to enter data into a computer system by using user input devices to manipulate and interact with user interface controls such as a window, a button, or a dialogue box. Graphical component interface
102
is a GUI that includes graphical user controls for editing graphical components. Graphical component interface
102
receives data indicating various properties of graphical components and operations to perform upon them, including operations for rendering the graphical components. Graphical Component Interface
102
includes image panel
110
, material editor
142
, and map editors
144
and
146
. Image panel
110
contains images of the material being edited, material BrickWall, and other graphical components used to define properties of the material being edited.
In the example shown in
FIG. 1
, the material being edited is BrickWall, and map BrickJoint and map Sandy are each used to define a property of BrickWall. Image panel
110
includes material image
112
, an image of material BrickWall, map image
114
, an image of map BrickJoint, and map
116
, an image of map Sandy. Image Label
122
is a label specifying the name of the material being edited and displayed in material image
112
. Image labels
124
and
126
are labels specifying the name of the maps displayed in map images
114
and
116
respectively.
A 3-D artist may enter data specifying properties of a material and its maps through dialogue boxes material editor
142
, map editor
144
, and map editor
146
. Material editor
142
is used to receive from a user data specifying properties of material BrickWall. Likewise, map editors
144
and
146
are used to receive from a user data specifying properties of materials BrickJoint and Sandy, respectively.
In addition to receiving data input from a user, material editor
142
, and map editors
144
and
146
each display a graphical component name and information about properties of the graphical components. For example, material editor
142
displays text indicating that map BrickJoint is used to define material BrickWall's diffuse property. Map Brickwall's map editor
144
shows that map Sandy is used to define the texture property of map BrickJoint.
To achieve a desired effect, a 3-D artist examines the arrangement of graphical components being displayed in graphical interface component
102
to determine which properties of which graphical component to edit. To see whether the changes bring about the desired effect, a 3-D artist changes the properties of the material and its graphical components, and observes the effects of the change upon the surface being rendered. For example, a 3-D artist desires to give the brick joint of material BrickWall a lighter gray color. By examining the graphical component interface
102
, the 3-D artists observes the gray lattice-like brick mortar depiction in map image
114
, and concludes that map BrickJoint is used to give material BrickWall its brick joints. The 3-D artist then proceeds to edit a color property of the map BrickJoint, and observes its effect not only on map BrickJoint in map image
114
, but on material BrickWall in material image
112
.
More complex materials are composed of a greater number of maps. Some of these may contain other maps, creating a complex hierarchical arrangement. Such an arrangement is not clearly depicted by the sequence of images in image panel
110
. When the relationship between graphical components of a complex material is not clear from the structure of images presented in image panel
110
, deciphering the numerous dialogue boxes and images displayed in graphical component interface
102
to ascertain the complex relationship between the graphical components is a very tedious and tiresome task.
For example, assume that graphical component interface
102
is being used to edit a material that has properties defined by many maps. These maps include a map A, which is used to define the diffuse property of the material. Several properties of map A are defined by a map B and a map C.
For the material and each map there is an image in image p
Miller Phillip
Silva Daniel D.
Yost Gary S.
Autodesk, Inc.
Bingham Marcel K.
Hickman Palermo & Truong & Becker LLP
Vo Cliff N.
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