Abstract: In order to reduce the amount of computation processing and simplify processing, a graphic processor apparatus includes a graphic signal generator circuit for generating video images such as graphics and characters, and a filter processor circuit for conducting filter processing on video images outputted from said graphic signal generator circuit. Anti-alias processing for reducing jaggy phenomena and flicker removing processing are simultaneously conducted in the filter processor circuit.

Abstract: A computer graphics display system and method are described for rendering objects formed of at least one geometric primitive as pixel images which collide or intersect in three dimensional space. A depth buffer stores depth information representing graphics images rendered by the graphics system. Data stored in the depth buffer representing graphics objects displayed in the three dimensional space are partitioned into three portions comprising an identification portion to store information identifying each object rendered in the three dimensional space, an object resolution portion to store data for controlling the resolution of the graphics object on a display screen, and a depth coordinate portion for storing the coordination information of the object rendered in the three dimensional space. A collision detection is provided to detect and determine when two objects collide on the display screen.

Abstract: In a computer operated three-dimensional shape modeler where a group of parts are to be edified, a view of the parts layout is selected by the designer and list of the parts is created in the computer memory for that view. A part in the list is designated as a target part. A designer sketches a two-dimensional figure, which relates to a design change, on surfaces of the group of parts in the layout view. A cross section of the designated target part is automatically set as a "sketch surface". The cross sectional shape of the selected surface of the target part is modified by the two-dimensional sketch figure. A second part is designated as the target part and that part is switched over the other parts in the list. A cross section of the second target part is also automatically set as a sketch surface. The cross sectional shape of the surface of the second target part is modified in a similar fashion as the modification to the first part.

Abstract: A method for depth complexity reduction includes inserting checkpoints between depth sorted object sections in a stream of geometric primitives. In response to receiving a checkpoint while rasterizing primitives for an image region, coverage data stored for the image region is checked to determine whether each pixel in the image region is fully covered. If so, then additional primitives for the image region can be ignored to avoid rendering occluded geometry.

Abstract: A system and method for weighting one or more vertices in a region being deformed by free-form deformation techniques assigns a weight a vertex based on the position of that vertex within the deformation lattice. The assigned weight is used to alter the amount of displacement that the free-form deformation would otherwise have on the vertex by an amount proportional to the weight.

Abstract: Automatic photographic color rendering of the surfaces of wire frame representation of 3-dimensional objects is described. Bit mapped information of surface areas is captured as part of image processing in the creation of wire frames into the computer. When a wire frame is transformed to a different orientation, the rendering surfaces are automatically transformed and the wire frame can be rendered in the new orientation with photographic quality.

Abstract: An image processing apparatus for forming a high-quality surface display image at high speed is provided. From raw data input by a medical image diagnosis apparatus, gray-level volume data and binary volume data in which a region-of-interest is extracted by binarizing are obtained. The binary volume data is subjected to ray-casting and projected onto a screen. A depth image formed of pixels on the screen and a distance between the screen and the surface (surface voxel) of a display object is obtained. The coordinates of the surface voxels are calculated from the depth image. Surface normals are obtained from voxel values of the gray-level volume data and a voxel values in the vicinity, and a shaded image is formed on the basis of surface normals.

Abstract: A computer-implemented shading system includes a geometric renderer which renders a computer generated image to produce geometric image information for an object in a scene, and a user interface which permits a user to selectively vary a designated parameter(s) to affect how that object is shaded. The system also includes a specialized shader to shade the object in the scene according to the designated parameter(s) and other shading parameters. The specialized shader is created from the user's original shader. The specialized shader has a cache loader which contains all of the terms of the user's original shader, plus load operations to load values from computations that do not depend from the designated parameter(s). The specialized shader also has a cache reader which contains a reduced set of terms from the original shader that depend on the designated parameter(s), plus read operations to read the values of the non-variant terms from the cache.

Abstract: A method for simulating and rendering hair. A simulator calculates the motion dynamics of a hair. The simulator includes a particle system that emits particles from a surface and a normalization module that normalizes the trajectory of each of the particles to a fixed length to form a set of normalized segments. The simulator outputs a list of normalized segments that are passed to a renderer. The renderer performs a variety of tasks, including fuzzy segment generation and self-shadowing, that results in an image being displayed on a display device. That is, the renderer takes three-dimensional spacial information, applies a light to this information and renders this information as a two-dimensional image.

Abstract: A pixel engine pipeline (including a "front-end" and a "back-end") communicates pixel information between a graphics processor, a pixel engine, a data cache, and system memory. The "front-end" (for reading requested data) includes a command queue for receiving graphics instructions from a graphics processor. Read requests in the command queue are stored in a read request queue. Extraction instructions corresponding to at least a portion of the read request are stored in an attribute queue. Control logic determines whether the requested data is located in a data cache. The read request is stored in a load request queue and the requested data is retrieved from system memory into a load data queue, if the requested data is not in the data cache. The control logic stores the requested data into a read data queue. The requested data is provided to a stage of the pixel engine from the read data queue in accordance with the extraction instructions.

Abstract: A method for simulating and rendering hair. A simulator calculates the motion dynamics of a hair. The simulator includes a particle system that emits particles from a surface and a normalization module that normalizes the trajectory of each of the particles to a fixed length to form a set of normalized segments. The simulator outputs a list of normalized segments that are passed to a renderer. The renderer performs a variety of tasks, including fuzzy segment generation and self-shadowing, that results in an image being displayed on a display device. That is, the renderer takes three-dimensional spacial information, applies a light to this information and renders this information as a two-dimensional image.

Abstract: Portions showing greater specular reflection of an object to be displayed are displayed with pixels whose opacity, .alpha..sub.1, is emphasized according to the specular reflected component of a shading model, in which case the specular reflected component thus calculated for shading is also utilized for arithmetic operation of emphasized opacity, .alpha..sub.1, and high-speed processing is sought through tabulating various variables such as .alpha..sub.s (an additional opacity introduced for emphasis by a specular reflected component), .alpha..sub.n (a primary opacity), and G (a gradient vector).

Abstract: A color palette mapped to an image obtained by any known process is decomposed to separate contrast components from hue/saturation pairs, then only the hue/saturation pairs are remapped to a new set of hue/saturation parameters according to available mapping techniques, including remapping of ordered color sets, into a new ordered set wherein at least a portion of the contrast components are held at fixed values and not altered. By fixing the contrast components, color remapping is constrained to certain symmetric transformations in Munsell color space which preserves features of the source image in the resultant image.