Patent
1990-10-30
1992-12-29
Herndon, Heather R.
395121, 395131, G06F 1572
Patent
active
051758059
ABSTRACT:
A pixel buffer separate from the frame buffer is provided to store selected pixel information, including XYZ values, sub-pixel coverage, and a color value for a graphic object. The frame buffer stores pixel information for each pixel on the screen, including sub-pixel coverage. During the rendering process, the pixel information for each graphic object is computed and stored in the frame buffer. However, as subsequent pixel information for the same XY pixel locations are computed, it may be impossible to combine the two separate sets of pixel information into a single set of pixel information while maintaining the pixel information required to combine the single set of pixel information with subsequent pixel information to be rendered to the same XY location. To maintain the pixel information needed, the first set of pixel information is stored in the frame buffer and the second set of pixel information is stored in the pixel buffer. The second set of pixel information stored in the pixel buffer is then subsequently reprocessed. The pixel buffer permits the processing of selected pixel information to be postponed until additional pixel information is available which may simplify the processing of the pixels shared in the pixel buffer. In addition, this pixel information stored in the pixel buffer may be made available to a general purpose processor which can perform selective complex computations.
REFERENCES:
patent: 4825391 (1989-04-01), Merz
patent: 4918626 (1990-04-01), Watkins et al.
patent: 4992788 (1991-03-01), Penna et al.
Foley, VanDam; "Fundamentals of Interactive Computer Graphics;" Addison-Wesley; 1982; pp. 553-572.
Herndon Heather R.
Smith Mike
Sun Microsystems Inc.
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