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Class 345/506 - Pipeline processors

Subclass of Class 345 - Computer graphics processing and selective visual display systems
Definition: Subject matter wherein the plural processors are operated
No. of patents: 555
Last issue date: 01/07/2014

NumberTitleIssue Date
6975320Method and apparatus for level-of-detail computations
A method and apparatus for computing a level-of detail (LOD) value for the of texels of a texture map to pixels of a graphics image adapted to receive signals representing texel coordinates for texels of a texture map and pixel coordinates for pixels of a graphics i...
6975321System and method for generating multiple outputs in a single shader processing pass in a hardware graphics pipeline
A system and method are provided for generating multiple output packets in a single processing pass of a shader in a hardware graphics pipeline. Initially, graphics data is received, after which it is processed utilizing the shader of the hardware graphics pipeline ...
6975322Dynamically adjusting a number of rendering passes in a graphics system
A graphics system includes a hardware accelerator and a frame buffer. The frame buffer includes a sample storage area and a double-buffered display pixel area. The hardware accelerator is operable to (a) render a stream of primitives into samples, (b) store the samp...
6975323Video data transfer system
A video data transfer system which increases the rate of capturing video data into a system memory without being affected by a data bus and which prevents the display of data on a display unit from being affected even when data is being captured. Video data from a v...
6971066System and method for deploying a graphical program on an image acquisition device
A computer-implemented system and method for deploying a graphical program onto an image acquisition (IMAQ) device. The method may operate to configure an image acquisition (IMAQ) device to perform image processing or machine vision functions, wherein the device inc...
6967664Method and apparatus for primitive processing in a graphics system
A method and apparatus for processing graphics primitives that includes a trivial discard guard band. Such a trivial discard guard band is used for comparison operations with the vertices of graphics primitives to determine whether the graphics primitives can be tri...
6967659Circuitry and systems for performing two-dimensional motion compensation using a three-dimensional pipeline and methods of operating the same
The present invention introduces circuitry and systems for performing two-dimensional motion compensation using a three-dimensional pipeline, as well as methods of operating the same. According to an exemplary embodiment, image processing circuitry is provided and i...
6963345API communications for vertex and pixel shaders
A three-dimensional API for communicating with hardware implementations of vertex shaders and pixel shaders having local registers. With respect to vertex shaders, API communications are provided that may make use of an on-chip register index and API communications ...
6963342Arbitration scheme for efficient parallel processing
A system and method for assigning operations to multiple pipelines in a graphics system is disclosed. The graphics system may include an arbitration unit coupled to a plurality of calculation pipelines. The arbitration unit is operable to provide graphics operations...
6961469Sort middle, screen space, graphics geometry compression through redundancy elimination
A geometry compression method for sort middle, screen space, graphics of the standard graphics pipeline. The pipeline processes a 3D database having geometric objects such as triangles and textures into a display image which may be shown to the user on a display mon...
6961063Method and apparatus for improved memory management of video images
A novel storage format enabling a method for improved memory management of video images is described. The method includes receiving an image consisting of a plurality of color components. Once received, the plurality of color components is converted to a mixed forma...
6956562Method for controlling a handheld computer by entering commands onto a displayed feature of the handheld computer
A method for software control using a user-interactive display screen feature is disclosed that reduces stylus or other manipulations necessary to invoke software functionality from the display screen. According to the method, a graphical feature having a surface ar...
6954204Programmable graphics system and method using flexible, high-precision data formats
A programmable graphics system and method for processing high precision graphics data represented in one or more data formats in one or more passes. Graphics program instructions executed by the system control the processing and format conversion of the data. The pr...
6952214Method for context switching a graphics accelerator comprising multiple rendering pipelines
A graphics system comprising a plurality of rendering pipelines and a scheduling network. Each rendering pipeline couples to the scheduling network, and includes a media processor, a rendering unit and a memory. A communication bus may couple the scheduling network ...
6952213Data communication system and method, computer program, and recording medium
An apparatus comprises two or more image processing units and a main merger unit. Each image processing unit comprises four information processing units and a sub merger unit for merging data output from the four information processing units. The main merger unit me...
69501063-dimensional graphic plotting apparatus
A clock control unit (7) detects completion of data processing based on a busy signal BSY1 output by a geometry processing unit (4) and a busy signal BSY2 output by a rendering processing unit (5). The clock control unit (7)...
6950930Multistandard video decoder and decompression system for processing encoded bit streams including pipeline processing and methods relating thereto
A pipeline video decoder and decompression system handles a plurality of separately encoded bit streams arranged as a single serial bit stream of digital bits and having separately encoded pairs of control codes and corresponding data carried in the serial bit strea...
6947053Texture engine state variable synchronizer
A mechanism for synchronizing state variables used by texture pipelines in a multi-pipeline graphics texture engine. The mechanism ensures that, as polygons are processed by a texture engine, the state variables associated with each polygon are distributed in parall...
6947047Method and system for programmable pipelined graphics processing with branching instructions
A programmable, pipelined graphics processor (e.g., a vertex processor) having at least two processing pipelines, a graphics processing system including such a processor, and a pipelined graphics data processing method allowing parallel processing and also handling ...
6943797Early primitive assembly and screen-space culling for multiple chip graphics system
A multi-chip system and method are disclosed for incorporating a primitive assembler in each of one or more geometry chips and one or more rasterization chips. This system may allow per-primitive operations to be performed in the geometry chips, and also allow use o...
6943796Method of maintaining continuity of sample jitter pattern across clustered graphics accelerators
A system and method are disclosed to allow the tiling of sample jitter patterns to be independent of the tiling of clustered graphics accelerators. Each accelerator uses an x,y “bias” offset to shift the origin of the jitter pattern within the sample space regio...
6943800Method and apparatus for updating state data
In a graphics processing circuit, up to N sets of state data are stored in a buffer such that a total length of the N sets of state data does not exceed the total length of the buffer. When a length of additional state data would exceed a length of available space i...
6941412Symbol frequency leveling in a storage system
Methods and apparatus for transforming data into a format which may be efficiently stored in a non-volatile memory are disclosed. According to one aspect of the present invention, a method for storing information of a first data format in a memory system includes ge...
6940512Image processing apparatus and method of same
An image processing apparatus able to efficiently utilize a large amount of operation processing elements, having a high degree of freedom of algorithms, and having a high flexibility, provided with a rasterizer for generating pixel data or addresses; a graphics uni...
6940514Parallel initialization path for rasterization engine
A system and method are disclosed for a rasterization pipeline with a parallel initialization path that may provide an increased rate of triangle processing. The edge walker, span walker, and sample generator modules of a rasterization pipeline may be modified to en...
6940519Graphics processor, graphics card and graphics processing system
A graphics processor includes a shading processing section which subjects pixel data to a shading process, a first path which permits map data and texture data output from a video memory to be input to the shading processing section, a second path which permits pixe...
6940525Method and apparatus for performing a perspective projection in a graphics device of a computer graphics display system
A method and apparatus for processing primitives in a computer graphics display system. The apparatus comprises a graphics device which receives commands and data from a host computer of the computer graphics display system. The data includes clip coordinates which ...
6941236Apparatus and methods for analyzing graphs
A plurality of hardware cells are defined, wherein at least a given one of the hardware cells corresponds to sets of vertices from a graph having vertices and edges interconnecting the vertices, and each of the sets are from a corresponding one of a number of portio...
6940513Data aware clustered architecture for an image generator
A data aware clustered system architecture is described for an image generation system. The architecture leverages commodity personal computers to provide the processing capability of the image generator such as may be used in a flight simulator. The architecture su...
6933941Scene representation method and system
One aspect of the invention is a method for representing a scene (S). The method includes providing a higher-level appearance description of an appearance of geometry in a retained-mode representation (13a, 300). The method also includes travers...
6933943Distributed resource architecture and system
A distributed resource system comprises a plurality of compute resource units operable to execute graphics applications and generate graphics data, and a plurality of visualization resource units communicatively coupled to the plurality of compute resource units and...
6933945Design for a non-blocking cache for texture mapping
A non-blocking cache for texture mapping is implemented by separating Cache Tags from Cache Data. Multiple requests for data may be processed in parallel without strict ordering or synchronization. Separating Cache Tags and Cache Data results in a texture memory cac...
6927783Graphics display system with anti-aliased text and graphics feature
A graphics integrated circuit chip is used in a set-top box for controlling a television display. The graphics chip processes analog video input, digital video input, a graphics input and an audio input simultaneously. The system may use anti-aliased text and graphi...
6924808Area pattern processing of pixels
A circuit for outputting area pattern bits from an area pattern array. The circuit includes a first stage, second stage and third stage. The first stage is configured to output N adjacent scan lines from a 2N×2N area pattern array based on a first address. N is a p...
6924799Method, node, and network for compositing a three-dimensional stereo image from a non-stereo application
A method of assembling a composite image comprising generating three-dimensional data defining a non-stereo image, assigning a first screen portion to a first rendering node, assigning a second screen portion to a second rendering node, rendering, by the first rende...
6924807Image processing apparatus and method
An apparatus for processing image data to produce an image for covering an image area of a display includes a plurality of graphics processors, each graphics processor being operable to render the image data into frame image data and to store the frame image data in...
6924820Over-evaluating samples during rasterization for improved datapath utilization
A system and method for rasterizing and rendering graphics data is disclosed. Vertices may be grouped to form primitives such as triangles, which are rasterized using two-dimensional arrays of samples bins. To overcome fragmentation problems, the system's sample eva...
6919897System and method for pre-processing a video signal
A method and apparatus for pre-processing video signals comprises a video input module, a first video pipeline, and a second video pipeline. The video input module receives and forwards one or more live video signals, producing a forwarded video signal for each rece...
6919896System and method of optimizing graphics processing
A method and system for optimizing the processing of graphics is disclosed. The system may comprise at least one geometry processor and at least one graphics processor. A communication channel permits communication between the geometry and graphics processors. A con...
6919894Unified memory distributed across multiple nodes in a computer graphics system
A system is described that is broadly directed to a system of integrated circuit components. The system comprises a plurality of nodes that are interconnected by communication links. A random access memory (RAM) is connected to each node. At least one functional uni...
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