Textured sphere and spherical environment map rendering using te

Details Textured sphere and spherical environment map rendering using te Textured sphere and spherical environment map rendering using te

1994-02-28

1995-08-29

Powell, Mark R.

395137, G06F 1572

Patent

active

054468337

ABSTRACT:
A method and apparatus for rendering textured spheres and spherical environment maps. The method of the present invention provides for real time rotation of a textured sphere and panning of the view into a spherical environment map, along multiple axes without the need for special rendering hardware. A two-level indexing scheme for accessing pixel data in a texture map, is used to identify shading values for pixels in a display window. The two-level indexing scheme is comprised of a screen look-up table and a parametric look-up table. The screen look-up table has the dimensions of the display window, whereas the parametric look-up table has the dimensions of the parametric spherical environment map (wherein the pixel addresses are rotated 90 degrees from the origin). The method for the present invention is comprised primarily of the steps of: providing a parametric spherical environment map of the image to be viewed, generating a screen look-up table comprised of look-up addresses, generating a parametric look-up table comprised of index values into the parametric spherical environment map, and for each look-up address in the screen look-up table, mapping to an entry in the parametric look-up table, retrieving the value in the entry, and using the value to retrieve pixel values from the parametric spherical environment map. Rotation or movement of the view being seen is accomplished by adding offsets to the look-up address and/or the index values.

REFERENCES:
patent: 4736436 (1988-04-01), Yasukawa et al.
patent: 4752836 (1988-06-01), Blanton et al.
patent: 4807158 (1989-02-01), Blanton et al.
patent: 4821212 (1989-04-01), Heartz
patent: 4841292 (1989-06-01), Zeno et al.
patent: 4899293 (1990-02-01), Dawson et al.
patent: 4935879 (1990-06-01), Ueda
patent: 5051734 (1991-09-01), Lake, Jr.
patent: 5161013 (1992-11-01), Rylander et al.
patent: 5175808 (1992-12-01), Sayre
patent: 5179638 (1993-01-01), Dawson et al.
patent: 5204944 (1993-04-01), Wolberg et al.
patent: 5224208 (1993-06-01), Miller, Jr. et al.
Foley, James D. et al., "Computer Graphics: Principals and Practice", 2nd ed., 1990, pp. 91, 657, 680, 715, 1156.
Williams, Lance, "Pyramidal Parametrics," Computer Graphics, vol. 17, No. 3, Jul. 1983 pp. 1-11.
Greene, Ned, "Environment Mapping and Other Applications of World Projections," IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications, vol. 6, No. 11, Nov. 1986, pp. 21-29.
Gardner, Geoffrey Y., "Simulation of Natural Scenes Using Textured Quadric Surfaces," Computer Graphics, vol. 18, No. 3, Jul. 1984, pp. 11-20.
Ken Perlin, "An Image Synthesizer," Computer Graphics, vol. 19, No. 3, 1985 pp. 287-296.

Affiliated with

Also associated with

Rating

Textured sphere and spherical environment map rendering using te does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this patent.

If you have personal experience with Textured sphere and spherical environment map rendering using te, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Textured sphere and spherical environment map rendering using te will most certainly appreciate the feedback.

Rate now

Comments { 0 }

Profile ID: LFUS-PAI-O-1826305