Abstract: A method of shading, by: storing shading information in a sample vector comprising a plurality of packets, wherein each packet represents a shading property; performing a series of sequential actions on the sample vector, wherein each of the sequential actions operates on at least one, but less than all of the plurality of packets in the sample vector, such that the sample vector is updated by each sequential action; and then performing a lighting computation on the updated sample vector, wherein the lighting computation operates on all of the plurality of packets in the sample vector, thereby calculating a final sample vector to be rendered for the sample vector.

Abstract: A method of rendering pixels from an abstract dataset, by: selecting a collection of sub-pixel locations for a plurality of pixels; sampling dataset properties at the selected sub-pixel locations; merging the properties of more than one of the selected sub-pixel locations; and calculating pixel values based upon the merged properties at the selected sample locations.

Abstract: A method of shading, by: storing shading information in a sample vector comprising a plurality of packets, wherein each packet represents a shading property; performing a series of sequential actions on the sample vector, wherein each of the sequential actions operates on at least one, but less than all of the plurality of packets in the sample vector, such that the sample vector is updated by each sequential action; and then performing a lighting computation on the updated sample vector, wherein the lighting computation operates on all of the plurality of packets in the sample vector, thereby calculating a final sample vector to be rendered for the sample vector.

Abstract: A method of rendering pixels from an abstract dataset, by: selecting a collection of sub-pixel locations for a plurality of pixels; sampling dataset properties at the selected sub-pixel locations; merging the properties of more than one of the selected sub-pixel locations; and calculating pixel values based upon the merged properties at the selected sample locations.

Abstract: The present invention consists of an evaluation engine, which is a system for evaluating the state of an animation at a specific time where secondary animation may be derived from the state of the animation at another time. Unlike DAG-based systems where time is another variable, time is external to the evaluation engine so that it can easily evaluate alternate times and even entire simulations. It also comprises meshes which support instancing and edge weights, and which employ and extensible system of polygon types to support subdivision surface approximation using a set of bi-quadratic patches which solve quickly. The meshes can also be animated by the evaluation engine using a mesh stack, which has multiple evaluation paths for quickly computing mesh attributes without performing a full evaluation.

Abstract: The present invention allows users to customize user interfaces within software programs on the fly. By customizing user interfaces users can streamline their own work process, particularly when the user is dealing with large amounts of data. In addition to customizing user interfaces, the present invention also allows users to more easily select portions of an object with the select more command and to more easily enter exact numeric values with detents on mouse input.