Computer graphics processing and selective visual display system – Computer graphics processing – Attributes
Reexamination Certificate
2001-12-28
2004-09-21
Bella, Matthew C. (Department: 2676)
Computer graphics processing and selective visual display system
Computer graphics processing
Attributes
Reexamination Certificate
active
06795082
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to an image generation system, program and image generation method.
There is known an image generation system (game system) which can generate an image as viewed from a virtual camera (a given viewpoint) within an object space that is a virtual three-dimensional space. Such a game system is highly popular from the fact that it can provide a so-called virtual reality. If the image generation system is for enjoying a role-playing game (RPG), a player can enjoy the game by controlling a character (or object) allocated to the player to move it on a map within the object space such that the player will fight against an enemy character, dialogue with any other character or visit various cities and towns.
In such a type of image generation system, a so-called movie (or moving image) is often replayed (reproduced) to increase a player's desire or emotion in a game opening, intermission or ending. The movie data has been MPEG-compressed and stored in an information storage medium and is replayed by expanding (or decoding) it through a hardware expander (or decoding unit or data expansion processor) which is included in the image generation system.
This movie enables more realistic representation in comparison with a picture generated by moving a three-dimensional object formed of polygons (or primitives) in real time, since the movie can be high quality computer generated (CG) pictures produced by CG tools spending a long time, or actual pictures photographed by a camera in the real world.
However, such a movie has only been considered to be used in this game opening or the like. Thus, the hardware expander in the image generation system could only handle the compressed data of the movie as a series of data streams. In other words, the compressed movie data could only be expanded and replayed in the order starting from the first frame and ending the last frame.
Also in the history, MPEG method or the like has only been considered to handle the compressed data as a series of streams and to expand and replay it.
This type of the movie is thus suitable for representation in the game opening or the like, but it is not suitable for real-time generation of a game picture which is always variable depending on the player's operation or the like, since the movie can be replayed only in the predetermined order starting from the first frame, but not from an arbitrary frame.
BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
A first aspect of the present invention relates to an image generation system comprising:
an expansion section which expands a series of first to N-th compressed textures included in compressed movie textures; and
a texture mapping section which maps a series of first to N-th expanded textures sequentially onto an object, the series of first to N-th expanded textures being obtained by expanding the series of first to N-th compressed textures,
wherein the texture mapping section maps the series of first to N-th expanded textures onto a first object in the order starting from the K-th expanded texture obtained by expanding the K-th compressed texture, and also onto a second object in the order starting from the L-th expanded texture obtained by expanding the L-th compressed texture.
A second aspect of the present invention relates to an image generation system comprising:
an expansion section which expands a series of first to N-th compressed textures included in compressed movie textures;
a texture mapping section which maps a series of first to N-th expanded textures sequentially on to an object, the series of first to N-th expanded textures being obtained by expanding the series of first to N-th compressed textures,
wherein the texture mapping section maps the series of first to N-th expanded textures sequentially on to an object while performing texture frame decimation in which mapping of the I-th expanded texture is followed by mapping of the (I+J)-th expanded texture (when J≧2).
A third aspect of the present invention relates to an image generation system comprising:
a storage section which stores compressed movie texture data including a series of first to N-th compressed textures;
an expansion section which expands the series of first to N-th compressed textures included in compressed movie textures; and
a texture mapping section which maps a series of first to N-th expanded textures sequentially on to an object, the series of first to N-th expanded textures being obtained by expanding the series of first to N-th compressed textures, wherein:
the compressed movie texture data stored in the storage section contains designation data used to designate storage locations of the first to N-th compressed textures; and
the texture mapping section maps an expanded texture obtained by expanding a compressed texture designated by the designation data onto an object.
A fourth aspect of the present invention relates to an image generation system comprising:
a storage section which stores compressed movie data including a series of first to N-th compressed frame images; and
an expansion section which expands the series of first to N-th compressed frame images included in compressed movies, wherein:
the compressed movie data stored in the storage section contains designation data used to designate storage locations of the first to N-th compressed frame images; and
a frame image obtained by expanding a compressed frame image designated by the designation data is replayed.
REFERENCES:
patent: 5592599 (1997-01-01), Lindholm
patent: 5974186 (1999-10-01), Smith et al.
Bella Matthew C.
Cunningham G. F.
Namco Ltd.
Oliff & Berridg,e PLC
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