James P Foran, 7017612 Edgewater Dr, Cleveland, OH 44107

6417860, Jul 9, 2002

May 5, 1998

09/072050

Christopher Joseph Migdal - Mt. View CA
James L. Foran - Milpitas CA
Michael Timothy Jones - Los Altos CA
Christopher Clark Tanner - San Jose CA

Microsoft Corporation - Redmond WA

G06T 1140

345582, 345428, 345426, 345427, 345587, 345620

An apparatus and method for quickly and efficiently providing texel data relevant for displaying a textured-image. A large amount of texture source data, such as photographic terrain texture, is stored as a two-dimensional or three-dimensional texture MIP-map on one or more mass storage devices. Only a relatively small clip-map representing selected portions of the complete texture MIP-map is loaded into faster, more expensive memory. These selected texture MIP-map portions forming the clip-map consist of tiles which contain those texel values at each respective level of detail that are most likely to be mapped to pixels being rendered for display based upon the viewers eyepoint and field of view. To efficiently update the clip-map in real-time, texel data is loaded and discarded from the edges of tiles. Attempts to access a texel lying outside of a particular clip-map tile are accommodated by utilizing a substitute texel value obtained from the next coarser resolution clip-map tile which encompasses the sought texel.

2002013, Sep 19, 2002

May 15, 2002

10/145110

David Blythe - San Carlos CA, US
James Foran - San Jose CA, US

G09G005/00

345/629000, 345/004000

A system, method, and computer program product for compositing rendered image data in near real time. The input pixel streams that constitute the rendered image data can be video streams, for example. Each input pixel stream can originate from its own graphics processing unit. Each pixel includes a set of color coordinates, such as red, green, and blue (RGB) coordinates, plus an alpha value. Compositing is performed by an image combiner implemented in either hardware or software. The image combiner accepts two or more input pixel streams, and performs compositing on corresponding pixels from each input pixel stream. The compositing process takes into account the color coordinates of each corresponding pixel as well as the alpha values. The compositing process also uses depth information that defines whether a given pixel is in the foreground or in the background relative to another corresponding pixel. The result of the compositing process is a resultant pixel stream based on corresponding pixels of each input pixel stream.

6072500, Jun 6, 2000

Sep 17, 1997

8/932371

James L. Foran - Milpitas CA
Mark M. Leather - Saratoga CA

Silicon Graphics, Inc. - Mountain View CA

G06T 500

345431

An image processing system is described that receives polygonal image data at the direction of a processor and develops antialiased image data for display on a raster scanned display. In particular, the image system includes a scan convertor for converting the polygonal image data into pixel data, which includes pixel screen coordinates and at least one color value for each polygon covered pixel of the pixel data and a supersample coverage mask indicating an extent of polygon coverage within each polygon covered pixel. The image system also includes a raster system having at least one image processor for receiving the pixel data for each pixel, for developing a region mask based on the supersample coverage mask, and for storing the color value in association with the region mask as anitialiased display data in an image memory in communication with the image processor based on the pixel screen coordinates. The region mask indicates one or more, geographical regions of supersamples within each pixel covered by one or more polygons and indicates a color value stored in the image memory to be assigned to the supersamples in a region. This requires only a single color value for supersamples within a region of a covered pixel to be stored in the image memory.

5704024, Dec 30, 1997

Jul 20, 1995

8/504773

Douglas Voorhies - Menlo Park CA
James Foran - Milpitas CA

Silicon Graphics, Inc. - Mountain View CA

G06T 1550

395126

An apparatus for generating a reflection from a three-dimensional environment map. The apparatus includes a reflection vector generator which receives an eye vector and a normal vector neither of which need be normalized. This reflection vector generator generates a reflection vector without vector normalization. The reflection vector generator then couples to a decoder to supply the generated reflection vector. The decoder, in turn, determines a location where the reflection vector indexes the selected 2-dimensional map which forms part of the environment map.

5819017, Oct 6, 1998

Aug 22, 1995

8/517592

Kurt Akeley - Mountain View CA
James Foran - Milpitas CA

Silicon Graphics, Inc. - Mountain View CA

G06T 1500

395122

In a computer system for creating images of three-dimensional objects, an apparatus and method for processing depth values representing the relative depths of the objects. The depth values are transformed according to projections in order to give the appearance of depth when the objects are displayed on a two-dimensional computer screen. These transformed depth values are then interpolated using N bits of precision. Next, the depth values are encoded into a format whereby the depth values have less than N bits. These encoded depth values are stored into memory. In displaying the objects, the encoded depth values are read from memory and compared to determine the relative depths of the objects.

5394170, Feb 28, 1995

Dec 15, 1992

7/990750

Kurt Akeley - Union city CA
James Foran - Milpitas CA

Silicon Graphics, Inc. - Mountain View CA

G09G 116

345189

A method and apparatus for controlling the storage of display information into a frame buffer is disclosed. A memory means is provided for storing information for controlling the storage of display information into the frame buffer where the memory means contains a plurality of locations each of which corresponds to and controls the storing of display information in one location of the frame buffer. A pass/fail ALU is coupled to the memory means to obtain a value for a particular pixel; this ALU provides a signal indicative of one of a first or second state which state indicates whether storage of display information to the frame buffer will occur. A first function is stored in a register, which function specifies the first signal. A first storage register and a second storage register store a second function and a third function respectively and provide a second value and a third respectively. The second value or third value is stored as a new value in the first memory for said first pixel location depending upon the state indicated by tile first signal.

5760783, Jun 2, 1998

Nov 6, 1995

8/554047

Christopher Joseph Migdal - Mt. View CA
James L. Foran - Milpitas CA
Michael Timothy Jones - Los Altos CA
Christopher Clark Tanner - San Jose CA

Silicon Graphics, Inc. - Mountain View CA

G06T 1100

345430

An apparatus and method for quickly and efficiently providing texel data relevant for displaying a textured image. A large amount of texture source data, such as photographic terrain texture, is stored as a two-dimensional or three-dimensional texture MIP-map on one or more mass storage devices. Only a relatively small clip-map representing selected portions of the complete texture MIP-map is loaded into faster, more expensive memory. These selected texture MIP-map portions forming the clip-map consist of tiles which contain those texel values at each respective level of detail that are most likely to be mapped to pixels being rendered for display based upon the viewer's eyepoint and field of view. To efficiently update the clip-map in real-time, texel data is loaded and discarded from the edges of tiles. Attempts to access a texel lying outside of a particular clip-map tile are accommodated by utilizing a substitute texel value obtained from the next coarser resolution clip-map tile which encompasses the sought texel.

5805782, Sep 8, 1998

Jan 23, 1996

8/590218

James L. Foran - Milpitas CA

Silicon Graphics, Inc. - Mountain View CA

G06T 1140

395126

A method and apparatus for generating interactive computer graphics images using projective texture mapping. The projective texture mapping of the present invention involves the mapping of a texture map onto a scene being rendered from the perspective of an arbitrarily positioned and oriented projection light source. The visual effect is as if the texture map were a slide being displayed onto the objects comprising the scene. During this process, homogeneous texture map coordinates are generated for corresponding geometric primitive vertex points. The vertex points of the geometric primitive are defined in terms of a world coordinate system. The homogeneous texture map coordinates of the vertex points are generated using transformation matrices of world coordinates to screen/clip coordinates and world coordinates to light source/texture map coordinates. Texture map coordinates for the remainder of the points of the geometric primitives are derived through interpolation of the vertex homogeneous texture coordinates. Texture map coordinates are generated during a span iteration process by dividing the two spatial homogeneous coordinates by the depth homogeneous coordinate.