System and method for providing graphics using graphical engine
View Patent ↗Systems and methods that provide graphics using a graphical engine are provided. In one example, a system may provide layered graphics in a video environment. The system may include a bus, a graphical engine and a graphical pipeline. The graphical engine may be coupled to the bus and may be adapted to composite a plurality of graphical layers into a composite graphical layer. The graphical engine may include a memory that stores the composite graphical layer. The graphical pipeline may be coupled to the bus and may be adapted to transport the composite graphical layer.
1. A system comprising:
a bus;
a graphical pipeline coupled to the bus and operable to generate a plurality of graphical layers; and
a graphical engine coupled to the bus, the graphical engine operable to receive stored information of the plurality of graphical layers over the bus from a storage device upon determining that a sufficient bus bandwidth is available for the information on the bus and further operable to composite the received plurality of graphical layers into a composite graphical layer-and to store the composite graphical layer in a memory of the graphical engine; and
wherein the graphical pipeline is further operable to transport the composite graphical layer over the bus to circuitry operable to combine the composite graphical layer with at least one real-time video layer.
2. The system of claim 1 , wherein the graphical engine is not a real-time client.
3. The system of claim 1 , wherein the graphical engine is a hardware graphical engine.
4. The system of claim 1 , wherein the graphical engine comprises a blitter that performs blitter operation on the composite graphical layer.
5. The system of claim 4 , wherein the blitter is operable to provide video tunneling.
6. The system of claim 1 , wherein the graphical pipeline comprises at least one of a window controller, a format conversion block and an aspect ratio conversion block.
7. The system of claim 1 , wherein the graphical pipeline comprises:
a window controller that is communicatively coupled to the graphical engine through the bus, and
a format conversion block that is communicatively coupled to the window controller.
8. The system of claim 1 , wherein the graphical pipeline comprises:
a format conversion block that is communicatively coupled to the graphical engine via the bus; and
a color look-up table (CLUT) that is communicatively coupled to the format conversion block.
9. The system of claim 1 , wherein the graphical pipeline comprises:
an aspect ratio conversion block communicatively coupled to the graphical engine via the bus; and
a format conversion block that is communicatively coupled to the aspect ratio conversion block.
10. The system of claim 1 , further comprising:
a cursor CLUT; and
a compositor communicatively coupled to the cursor CLUT and to the graphical engine through the bus.
11. The system of claim 1 , wherein the graphical engine is operable to reduce flutter in a graphical display.
12. The system of claim 1 , wherein the graphical engine comprises a scaling engine operable to reduce flutter in the composite graphical layer.
13. The system of claim 1 , wherein the graphical engine is operable to convert graphical information to a particular aspect ratio.
14. The system of claim 1 , wherein the graphical engine is operable to provide at least one of scaling, blending and rastering of graphical information.
15. The system of claim 1 , wherein the graphical engine is utilized in a set top box.
16. A system comprising:
a graphical hardware engine operable to receive, over a bus, information of a plurality of graphical layers obtained from a plurality of corresponding graphics pipeline streams stored on a storage device upon determining that a sufficient bus bandwidth is available for the information on the bus, and further operable to generate a composite graphic layer as a function of the received plurality of graphic layers and to store the composite graphical layer in a memory of the graphical hardware engine; and
a graphical pipeline coupled to the graphical hardware engine over the bus, the graphical pipeline operable to transport the composite graphic layer to circuitry operable to combine the composite graphic layer with at least one real-time video layer.
17. The system of claim 16 , wherein the graphical hardware engine comprises a blitter.
18. The system of claim 17 , wherein the blitter is operable to provide one or more of: anti-flutter processing, aspect ratio conversion, and video tunneling.
19. The system of claim 16 , wherein the graphical hardware engine is shared by multiple graphical pipelines corresponding to multiple video outputs.
20. A system comprising:
a graphical engine coupled to a bus, the graphical engine operable to:
retrieve a plurality of stored graphical pipeline streams via the bus from a storage device upon determining that a sufficient bus bandwidth is available for the information on the bus;
composite the plurality of retrieved graphical pipeline streams into a single composite graphical layer by blending the plurality of graphical pipeline streams; and
store the single composite graphical layer in an on-chip memory within the graphical engine; and
a graphical pipeline coupled to the graphical engine and the bus, the graphical pipeline operable to transport the composite graphical layer over the bus to circuitry operable to combine in real-time, the composite graphical layer with at least one real-time video layer.
21. The system according to claim 20 , wherein the graphical pipeline is operable to:
format the single composite graphical layer to a particular graphics standard, to generate a formatted composite graphical layer;
scale the formatted composite graphical layer; and
blend the scaled and formatted composite graphical layer with cursor graphics to generate blended video information.