Patents by Inventor Samir Abou-Samra
Samir Abou-Samra has filed for patents to protect the following inventions. This listing includes patent applications that are pending as well as patents that have already been granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).
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Patent number: 7050064Abstract: Effective color resolution of a limited-memory color-mapped display system such as a portable liquid crystal display (LCD) handheld video game system can be increased by changing the color mapping information during active display time (e.g., during the horizontal blanking interval between rasterization of successive lines on the display). A subset of the color mapping information can be rewritten during each horizontal blanking period. A full color bitmapped source image can be converted into a color-mapped image in a way that optimizes the use of such color map updates. Since photographic and photorealistic images typically don't exhibit abrupt color changes between neighboring pixels, such techniques can result in display of a color image with very high color resolution (e.g., having as many as 2048 different colors) on hardware intended to permit simultaneous display of only a much smaller number of different colors (e.g., only 56 different colors simultaneously).Type: GrantFiled: April 8, 2002Date of Patent: May 23, 2006Assignee: Nintendo Co., Ltd.Inventors: Jun Pan, Samir Abou-Samra, Robert Champagne, Claude Comair, Sun Tjen Fam, Prasanna Ghali, Xin Li
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Patent number: 6906732Abstract: A fast, texture morphing algorithm for real-time computer simulation and video games dynamically generates objects “on the fly” by simplifying and reducing the computational load required for a texture morphing/blending process. Incremental interpolation techniques compute a morph parameter based on previous value and morph change rate. Precomputed initial and incremental morph parameter values for each texel component are applied during real-time morphing procedures using integer arithmetic. Approximation errors are reduced by incrementing/decrementing by an extra integer value when the number of morph iterations is a multiple of a frame counter. The frame counter avoids over-runs, and the morphing procedure is “snapped” the texel value to the precise texture target value to prevent under-runs and corresponding artifacts. Interlacing (applying interpolation to a subset of the texels each frame) significantly reduces computational load without introducing significant image artifacts.Type: GrantFiled: January 28, 2000Date of Patent: June 14, 2005Assignee: Nintendo Co., Ltd.Inventors: Xin Li, Samir Abou-Samra, Robert Champagne, Claude Comair, Sun Tjen Fam, Prasanna Ghali, Jun Pan
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Publication number: 20030189576Abstract: Effective color resolution of a limited-memory color-mapped display system such as a portable liquid crystal display (LCD) handheld video game system can be increased by changing the color mapping information during active display time (e.g., during the horizontal blanking interval between rasterization of successive lines on the display). A subset of the color mapping information can be rewritten during each horizontal blanking period. A full color bitmapped source image can be converted into a color-mapped image in a way that optimizes the use of such color map updates. Since photographic and photorealistic images typically don't exhibit abrupt color changes between neighboring pixels, such techniques can result in display of a color image with very high color resolution (e.g., having as many as 2048 different colors) on hardware intended to permit simultaneous display of only a much smaller number of different colors (e.g., only 56 different colors simultaneously).Type: ApplicationFiled: April 8, 2002Publication date: October 9, 2003Inventors: Jun Pan, Samir Abou-Samra, Robert Champagne, Claude Comair, Sun Tjen Fam, Prasanna Ghali, Xin Li
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Patent number: 6628286Abstract: Transformation matrices describing the motion of an articulated reference object specify translations of the reference object and/or its articulated parts, and are relative to the origin of the object's coordinate system. During the real-time animation process, a connection matrix is saved to represent the current transformation status of the animated object. This connection matrix being obtained by continuously concatenating an external transformation (if any) with the next animation step. This process allows efficient insertion of external transformations (e.g., resulting from operating real-time interactive user controls). Use of absolute transformations to develop the connection matrix allows a first animation sequence to be interrupted at any arbitrary point and immediately, smoothly followed by a second animation sequence (e.g., walking can be interrupted at any time and turned into running, jumping, etc.).Type: GrantFiled: October 8, 1999Date of Patent: September 30, 2003Assignee: Nintendo Software Technology CorporationInventors: Claude Comair, Prasanna Ghali, Samir Abou Samra, Sun Tjen Fam, Xin Li
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Patent number: 6591019Abstract: Compressing and decompressing techniques for transformation matrices 3D computer graphics systems use to animate objects achieve high compression ratios by taking advantage of common characteristics of homogenous 3D transformation matrices. The techniques use a bitmap to encode information on locations of ones and zeros of the matrix—bypassing the penchant of compilers to represent such information as high-precision numbers. Since most video game processors and display hardware are constrained by their resolutions and since an original transformation matrix often stores data that is more accurate than necessary, the techniques convert some real numbers in the matrix (e.g., those within the range of −1 and 1) into integers by scaling them by a constant. The resulting compressed matrices occupy much less storage space than their non-compressed counterparts, and can be efficiently decompressed in real time for use in interactive real time 3D animations.Type: GrantFiled: January 28, 2000Date of Patent: July 8, 2003Assignee: Nintendo Co., Ltd.Inventors: Claude Comair, Xin Li, Samir Abou-Samra, Robert Champagne, Sun Tjen Fam, Prasanna Ghali, Jun Pan
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Patent number: 6416410Abstract: Loss-less data compression/decompression especially useful in a limited resource environment such as a handheld portable video game system allows graphics and/or attribute data to be efficiently and quickly decompressed on an as-needed basis in real time response to interactive user inputs. A two-level run-length-encoding is used to encode redundant patterns and redundant symbols. A common sentinel field format encodes whether data following the field is non-redundant data, a symbol run, or a pattern run. Compression ratios of 60% for representative symbol-mapped video display graphics/attribute files can be achieved.Type: GrantFiled: December 3, 1999Date of Patent: July 9, 2002Assignee: Nintendo Co., Ltd.Inventors: Samir Abou-Samra, Claude Comair, Robert Champagne, Sun Tjen Fam, Prasanna Ghali, Stephen Lee, Jun Pan, Xin Li
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Patent number: 6373462Abstract: Effective color resolution of a limited-memory color-mapped display system such as a portable liquid crystal display (LCD) handheld video game system can be increased by changing the color mapping information during active display time (e.g., during the horizontal blanking interval between rasterization of successive lines on the display). A subset of the color mapping information can be rewritten during each horizontal blanking period. A full color bitmapped source image can be converted into a color-mapped image in a way that optimizes the use of such color map updates. Since photographic and photorealistic images typically don't exhibit abrupt color changes between neighboring pixels, such techniques can result in display of a color image with very high color resolution (e.g., having as many as 2048 different colors) on hardware intended to permit simultaneous display of only a much smaller number of different colors (e.g., only 56 different colors simultaneously).Type: GrantFiled: December 7, 1999Date of Patent: April 16, 2002Assignee: Nintendo Co., Ltd.Inventors: Jun Pan, Samir Abou-Samra, Robert Champagne, Claude Comair, Sun Tjen Fam, Prasanna Ghali, Xin Li
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Patent number: 6369827Abstract: Effective color resolution of a limited-memory color-mapped display system such as a portable liquid crystal display (LCD) handheld video game system can be increased by changing the color mapping information during active display time (e.g., during the horizontal blanking interval between rasterization of successive lines on the display). A subset of the color mapping information can be rewritten during each horizontal blanking period. A full color bitmapped source image can be converted into a color-mapped image in a way that optimizes the use of such color map updates. Since photographic and photorealistic images typically don't exhibit abrupt color changes between neighboring pixels, such techniques can result in display of a color image with very high color resolution (e.g., having as many as 2048 different colors) on hardware intended to permit simultaneous display of only a much smaller number of different colors (e.g., only 56 different colors simultaneously).Type: GrantFiled: August 4, 2000Date of Patent: April 9, 2002Assignee: Nintendo Co., Ltd.Inventors: Jun Pan, Samir Abou-Samra, Robert Champagne, Prasanna Ghali, Xin Li, Claude Comair, Sun Tjen Fam