Computer graphics processing and selective visual display system – Display driving control circuitry – Controlling the condition of display elements
Reexamination Certificate
1998-04-03
2001-03-06
Zimmerman, Mark (Department: 2772)
Computer graphics processing and selective visual display system
Display driving control circuitry
Controlling the condition of display elements
Reexamination Certificate
active
06198477
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention is related to digital image editing and production systems.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Technology for manipulating digital video has progressed to a point where it can be readily processed and handled on computers. Video production systems have been provided wherein digital video can be readily captured, edited, and displayed for various purposes, such as broadcast television and film and video program post-production.
Typical production systems typically operate in a composition mode, for creating production material, adding special effects and the like. When it is desired to view the results of the composition, the production systems switch to a display mode, where portions of the edited product are displayed for viewing. When generating a composition, the user typically switches between these modes of operation to monitor the quality of decisions made during composition.
One example of such a video production system is described in PCT patent application WO 94/24815, filed Apr. 16, 1993 and entitled “Media Pipeline with Multichannel Video Processing and Playback”, incorporated herein by reference. In this system, two streams of video data are independently compressed or decompressed and the results are blended to form a composite image. Processing and keying is performed on the blended data stream.
One advantage of the above system is that it allows different resolutions and compression amounts to be applied to the two data streams. However, the positioning of the blender limited the amount of keying events that could be added to the production on any given pass through the pipeline. In addition, because only two stream of data were processed, often the generation of composite images, which result from a blending of multiple streams of data, required multiple passes through the pipeline.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
An architecture for performing real-time image processing on multiple image data streams using compressed or uncompressed image data includes a switch for forwarding data from multiple input sources to multiple destinations on a video processing device. The video processing device includes two independent processing pipelines for processing two data streams. The switch may couple one input data stream to be multiple destinations. As a result, multiple tasks, such as record and play, may be performed on the data stream simultaneously. Alternatively, the switch allows two different input data streams to be forwarded to two different destinations, for example, two different inputs to a mixing device.
A number of channel devices provide intermediary storage of pixel, matte, alpha, and down stream keying information from or to the host. Two down stream keying channels feed associated mixers. The mixers are coupled in a cascaded fashion using the switch, thereby providing selective keying capability and allowing for multiple keying events to be entered during one phase of processing. In addition, the two down stream keying channels are used to store portions of title images to provide smooth rolling and crawling of titles.
Each of the processing pipelines on the video processing device includes dedicated adjustment logic, compression logic and frame buffer storage. Logic is provided with each frame buffer to support motion effects. By providing two distinct processing pipelines, greater control may be achieved for production of an output image.
The video processing devices may be cascaded using the switch, with the results of the processing of two data streams by the two processing pipelines of a first video processing device being forwarded as an input video source to the second processing device. A third data stream may then be combined with the first two data streams. Additional data streams may be processed by cascading additional video processing devices. In addition, each video processing device may be coupled to special effects processors. Thus, cascading video processing devices allows for an increased amount of special effects to be applied to data streams in any given pass through the video processing pipeline.
In one aspect, a system for processing sequences of digital still images to provide real-time digital video effects includes at least one configurable switch coupling a plurality of sources to a plurality of destinations, where a mode of configuration of the at least one configurable switch controls a direction of flow of the sequences of digital still images from at least one of the plurality of sources to at least one of the plurality of destinations.
In another aspect, a system for processing compressed and uncompressed sequences of still images includes at least one processing datapath capable of operating in compressed and uncompressed mode and select logic, coupled to the at least one processing datapath, for selectively transferring either compressed or uncompressed sequences of digital still images between respective compressed and uncompressed sources and the at least one processing datapath.
In another aspect, a video processing device for providing video processing capability to a host computer includes at least one configurable switch to couple a plurality of sources to a plurality of destinations. A first processing datapath couples a first one of the sources and the at least one configurable switch, where the first processing datapath transfers sequences of digital still images to the configurable switch. A second processing datapath couples a second one of the sources and the at least one configurable switch, where the second processing datapath transfers sequences of digital still images to the configurable switch. A bus couples the video processing device to the host computer, and at least one channel is coupled to the bus and to the at least one configurable switch, for transferring data between the host computer and the video processing device.
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The Brughetti Corporation, 1994, product information and diagrams for PURE Image Creator, SLICE Transition Maker, and AIR Playout Manager.
Gonsalves Robert
Kurtze Jeffrey D.
Rice Joseph H.
Avid Technology Inc.
Cao Huedung X.
Wolf Greenfield & Sacks P.C.
Zimmerman Mark
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