Pipelined lighting model processing system for a graphics workstations shading function United States Patent 04866637

04866637 is referenced by 143 patents and cites 6 patents.

A lighting model processing system for a computer graphics workstation's shading function includes multiple floating point processing stages arranged and operated in pipeline. Each stage is constructed from one or more identical floating point processors. The lighting model processing system supports one or more light sources illuminating an object to be displayed, with parallel or perspective projection. Dynamic partitioning can be used to balance the computational workload among various of the processors in order to avoid a bottleneck in the pipeline. The high throughput of the pipeline system makes possible the rapid calculation and display of high quality shaded images.

Title
Pipelined lighting model processing system for a graphics workstations shading function
Application Number
7/115467
Publication Number
4866637
Application Date
October 30, 1987
Publication Date
September 12, 1989
Inventor
Bob C Liang
West Hurley
NY, US
Bruce C Hempel
Tivoli
NY, US
Jorge Gonzalez Lopez
Red Hook
NY, US
Agent
J Dennis Moore
Mark S Walker
Assignee
International Business Machines Corporation
NY, US
IPC
G06F 15/40
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Citations: 143 (view full list)

  1. Adrian Philip Wise, Martin William Sotheran: Picture end token in a system comprising a plurality of pipeline stages. Discovision Associates, Robert T Braun, Donald Bollella, Clay E Gaetje, September 21, 1999: US05956519 (149 worldwide citation)
  2. Mark M Leather, Robert A Drebin, Timothy J Van Hook: Method and apparatus for interleaved processing of direct and indirect texture coordinates in a graphics system. Nintendo, Nixon & Vanderhye, February 21, 2006: US07002591 (148 worldwide citation)
  3. David Robert Baldwin: Rendering architecture with selectable processing of multi-pixel spans. 3DLabs, Robert Groover, Betty Formby, Matthew S Anderson, June 9, 1998: US05764243 (109 worldwide citation)
  4. Farhad Fouladi, Mark M Leather, Robert Moore, Howard Cheng, Timothy J Van Hook: Graphics system with copy out conversions between embedded frame buffer and main memory. Nintendo, Nixon & Vanderhye, February 27, 2007: US07184059 (105 worldwide citation)
  5. Robert A Drebin, Timothy J Van Hook, Patrick Y Law, Mark M Leather, Matthew Komsthoeft: Recirculating shade tree blender for a graphics system. Nintendo, Nixon & Vanderhye PC, February 13, 2007: US07176919 (96 worldwide citation)
  6. David Robert Baldwin: Graphics pre-processing and rendering system. 3dLabs, Robert Groover, Betty Formby, Matthew S Anderson, June 9, 1998: US05764228 (94 worldwide citation)
  7. Robert A Drebin, Timothy J Van Hook, Patrick Y Law, Mark M Leather, Matthew Komsthoeft: Recirculating shade tree blender for a graphics system. Nintendo, Nixon & Vanderhye P C, April 25, 2006: US07034828 (89 worldwide citation)
  8. David Robert Baldwin: Graphics rendering system with reconfigurable pipeline sequence. 3DLabs, Robert Groover, Betty Formby, Matthew S Anderson, August 25, 1998: US05798770 (88 worldwide citation)
  9. Mark M Leather, Farhad Fouladi: Method and apparatus for anti-aliasing in a graphics system. Nintendo, Nixon & Vanderhye P C, February 14, 2006: US06999100 (87 worldwide citation)
  10. Adrian P Wise, Nicholas Birch: Video decompression. Discovision Associates, Ronald J Clark, Robert T Braun, Arthur S Bickel, December 30, 1997: US05703793 (83 worldwide citation)

References: 6

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