Abstract: A method and system are provided for drawing one or more surfaces. The system includes a drawing processor, a frame buffer with z buffer and a display device, such as a display monitor. The drawing processor can perform all of the following steps. A first pixel in a first row is selected. The first pixel is near a first point at which a projection onto a plane of view of a first edge of a first surface intersects the first row of pixels in the plane of view. A first distance from the first point to a second point on the first surface is determined. The first point is a projection onto the plane of view of the second point. The first distance is then corrected by a first value representing a difference in distance between the first distance and a distance from the first pixel to a third point on the first surface. The first pixel overlies, e.g., and is centered at, a point that is a projection onto the plane of view of the third point.

Abstract: A process and apparatus are disclosed for obtaining a texture color value C.sub.r for an object surface point from two texture color values C.sub.ri and C.sub.rj (which themselves may be interpolated texture color values), of texture data points C.sub.i and C.sub.j, respectively. The object surface point is a distance W from the texture data point C.sub.i and a distance 1-W from the object surface point C.sub.j, where W is an n-bit value. The process includes the steps of multiplying each of the texture colors C.sub.ri and C.sub.rj by each integer from 0 to 2.sup.n-1 to produce 2.sup.n -1 products for each color. The product of C.sub.ri with 2.sup.n-1 -W' and the product of C.sub.rj with W' are selected from these produced products, where W' is the rounded product of W and 2.sup.n-1. The two selected products are added together to produce the sum (2.sup.n-1 -W').multidot.C.sub.ri +W'.multidot.C.sub.rj, and the sum thus produced is divided by 2.sup.n-1 to produce the interpolated color.

Abstract: A pixel block transfer system has a shifter, at least two registers, an extractor and a mask. Parameter evaluation logic is used to generate most of the parameters needed in the pixel block transfer. The start address of the source block, the start address of the destination block, the number of pixels in the source block and the number of rows in the source block are input to the parameter evaluation logic. The parameter evaluation logic then determines the left shift number, the number of read data, the number of write data, the two write flag, the two read flag, the left mask number and the right mask number. The start addresses, the flags and the read and write numbers are sent to a state machine. These are used to control the pixel block transfer. The left shift number is sent to the shifter and the extractor. It signifies the number of pixels to be shifted left. The left and right mask numbers are sent to the mask to control which pixels are masked and, therefore, not modifiable.

Abstract: A display memory architecture which efficiently stores and processes true color and index mode pixels is disclosed. The R, G and B components of true color mode pixels occupy different groups of bit planes in different banks of a frame memory. In addition, consecutive index mode pixels are located in not necessarily consecutive different groups of bit planes in consecutive banks so that a plurality of index mode pixels can be accessed simultaneously in reading and writing operations. Pixel swap circuits are used to swap the order of the R, G and B components of true color pixels and the order of simultaneously accessed index mode pixels, when the order of the accessed locations is different from the order in which R, G and B components of true color pixels or a plurality of index mode pixels are processed by a graphics processor.