Abstract: A recursive ray casting method and apparatus is described that increases casting and visible object determination efficiency by casting entire bundles of rays relatively large distances and subdividing into smaller bundles and casting distances when within a certain proximity of graphical objects. A bundle caster recursively advances the position of a ray bundle. A proximity tester receives the position and returns a hit signal if the position is proximate to an object. A ray caster recursively advances the position of an individual ray. A collision tester receives the position of the individual ray and returns a hit signal if the ray impinges upon an object. The ray caster and the bundle caster communicate with an occlusion detector to eliminate unnecessary casting of rays and bundles and thereby conduct gated pixelization of graphical objects.

Abstract: Graphical memory access requests are routed to a plurality of bucket buffers. Filled bucket write buffers and empty bucket read buffers are efficiently emptied and filled respectively via a wide memory bus. The bucket sorting apparatus and method is used to increase the locality of memory references and pixel operations within a graphical rendering system. The increased locality increases graphical rendering performance and facilitates the usage of smaller z-buffers, larger tiles, and low-cost dynamic RAM within a graphics pipeline.

Abstract: Graphical memory access requests are routed to a plurality of bucket buffers. Filled bucket write buffers and empty bucket read buffers are efficiently emptied and filled respectively via a wide memory bus. The bucket sorting apparatus and method is used to increase the locality of memory references and pixel operations within a graphical rendering system. The increased locality increases graphical rendering performance and facilitates the usage of smaller z-buffers, larger tiles, and low-cost dynamic RAM within a graphics pipeline.

Abstract: A coarse z-buffer stores an occlusion depth for each pixel within a graphical scene. An pixel set descriptor is received describing a set of pixels including minimum and maximum depths. Occluded pixels are detected by comparing the occlusion depth for each pixel in the set with the minimum depth for the set of pixels. Occlusion depths are updated for each pixel in the set having an occlusion depth greater than the maximum depth of the set of pixels. The course z-buffer is used to conduct gated pixelization when rendering graphical objects. After pixelization, the non-occluded pixels are sorted into screen regions and processed through a region-sized z-buffer for final pixel pruning. The visible pixels are then colorized and filtered to complete the graphical rendering process.

Abstract: A recursive ray casting method and apparatus is described that increases casting and visible object determination efficiency by casting entire bundles of rays relatively large distances and subdividing into smaller bundles and casting distances when within a certain proximity of graphical objects. A bundle caster recursively advances the position of a ray bundle. A proximity tester receives the position and returns a hit signal if the position is proximate to an object. A ray caster recursively advances the position of an individual ray. A collision tester receives the position of the individual ray and returns a hit signal if the ray impinges upon an object. The ray caster and the bundle caster communicate with an occlusion detector to eliminate unnecessary casting of rays and bundles and thereby conduct gated pixelization of graphical objects.