Granted Patent B2

US 7,538,779 · App. 11/486,339 · Granted May 26, 2009

Assignee: Luxology, LLC

Abstract

Claims (48)

1. A method of rendering pixels from an abstract dataset, comprising:

selecting a first collection of sub-pixel locations within a plurality of pixels, wherein the plurality of pixels are generated using at least one processor;

sampling dataset properties at the selected sub-pixel locations;

selecting a second collection of sub-pixel locations within the plurality of pixels, wherein said sub-pixel locations within the second collection are not the same as any of the sub-pixel locations within the first collection;

merging the dataset properties of more than one of the selected sub-pixel locations within the first collection;

storing the merged dataset properties at selected sub-pixel locations within the second collection;

calculating pixel values based only upon the merged data properties stored at the sub-pixel locations within the second collection, wherein all sub-pixel locations are within the same plane.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the plurality of pixels are extracted from a rectangular bucket from a larger image frame buffer.

3. The method of claim 2 , further comprising:

processing more than one bucket at a time using multiple processors.

4. The method of claim 2 , further comprising:

combining multiple passes over the same bucket with different initial conditions.

5. The method of claim 4 , further comprising:

sampling only a subset of the selected first collection of sub-pixel locations for each bucket pass.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein merging further comprises:

comparing dataset properties at the selected first collection of sub-pixel locations within a pixel; and

averaging dataset property values if the dataset property values match within pre-determined thresholds.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein merging further comprising:

comparing dataset properties at the selected first collection of sub-pixel locations between neighboring pixels; and

averaging dataset property values if the property values match within pre-determined thresholds.

8. The method of claim 6 or 7 , wherein the sub-pixel locations are adjacent in screen space within a specified shading rate.

9. The method of claim 8 , further comprising:

calculating different pixel values at different shading rates.

10. The method of claim 8 , further comprising:

comparing pixel values between adjacent pixels;

merging properties at the selected first collection of sub-pixel locations at a finer rate if the difference between adjacent pixel values exceeds a pre-determined threshold; and

calculating pixel values based upon the merged properties at the finer rate.

11. The method of claim 6 or 7 , further comprising:

sampling dataset properties with different time attributes at the selected first collection of sub-pixel locations; and

merging time attributes along with the property values.

12. The method of claim 1 , wherein sampling dataset properties comprises:

scan converting of 2D or 3D dataset properties.

13. The method of claim 1 , wherein sampling dataset properties comprises:

ray tracing of 3D dataset properties.

14. The method of claim 1 , wherein sampling dataset properties comprises:

baking from UV coordinates of 3D surface dataset properties.

15. The method of claim 1 , wherein calculating pixel values further comprises:

computing pixel values for a plurality of the merged dataset properties in a pixel;

associating computed pixel values with the selected second collection of sub-pixel locations; and

filtering pixel values at the selected second collection of sub-pixel locations using a high-quality image reconstruction filter.

16. The method of claim 1 , wherein sampling dataset properties comprises:

determining the dataset properties at the selected first collection sub-pixel locations;

storing the dataset properties as pointers to material objects; and

merging the dataset properties when the material pointers match.

17. The method of claim 1 , wherein positions of the second collection of sub-pixel locations are determined, at least in part, by the data that are merged and stored at the locations.

18. The method of claim 17 , wherein the data are merged by averaging the data.

19. The method of claim 1 , wherein calculating pixel values based upon the merged dataset properties at the selected second collection of sub-pixel locations comprises calculating shading and rendering for the pixel.

20. The method of claim 1 , wherein the positions of the first collection of sub-pixel locations are determined prior to sampling the dataset.

Assignments (9)

Continuity (2)