Abstract: The problem of generating high quality images with a rendering pipeline based on decoupled sampling may be addressed by generating non-extrapolated shading locations and by determining improved texture filtering footprints. This may be accomplished by performing shading at the center of a bounding box that bounds mapped shading samples.

Abstract: Depth of field may be rasterized by culling half-space regions on a lens from which a triangle to be rendered is not visible. Then, inside tests are only performed on the remaining unculled half-space regions. Separating planes between the triangle to be rendered and the tile being processed can be used to define the half-space regions.

Abstract: A single instruction multiple data (SIMD) processor with a given width may operate on registers of the same width completely filled with fragments. A parallel set of registers are loaded and tested. The fragments that fail are eliminated and the register set is refilled from the parallel set.

Abstract: Micropolygon splatting may involve tessellating by subdividing a mesh until triangle edges are shorter than 0.75 pixels. In some cases, rasterizing the primitive may be avoided.

Abstract: In order to efficiently backface cull rendering primitives during computer graphics rendering, it is important to be sure that the rendering primitives to be culled are guaranteed to be backfacing even if the primitives are moving or are undergoing defocus blur. Therefore, we derive conservative tests that determine if a moving and defocused triangle is backfacing over an entire time interval and over the area of a lens. In addition, we present tests for the special cases of only motion blur and only depth of field.

Abstract: During compilation, the interval bounds for a programmable culling unit are calculated if possible. For each variable, interval bounds are calculated during the compilation, and the bounds together with other metadata are used to generate an optimized culling program. If not possible, then an assumption may be made and the assumption used to compile the code. If the assumption proves to be invalid, a new assumption could be made and the code may be recompiled in some embodiments.