Method, medium, and system rendering 3D graphic objects

• US 20080079719A1
• Filed: 08/09/2007
• Published: 04/03/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 09/29/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.
• Original Assignee: Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.
• Inventors: Woo, Sang-oak
• Granted Patent: US 8,817,023 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 345/419
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 15/30 Clipping

Abstract

A method, medium, and system rendering 3-dimensional (3D) graphic objects. According to the 3D rendering method, medium, and system, a minimum number of objects for expressing a current state of a user interface are extracted, and the extracted objects are rendered, thereby enabling the rendering performance of a user interface engine to be improved. Here, according to a method, medium, and system minimizing the number of rendering objects, a minimum number of objects for expressing each state of a user interface are culled, and a list of the culled objects is generated, thereby enabling the minimum number of objects for expressing a current state of a user interface to be extracted using the list of the culled objects.

Claims

1. A method of rendering 3-dimensional (3D) graphic objects, comprising:

extracting at least one object, from a plurality of 3D graphic objects, corresponding to a current state of a user interface, from a plurality of viewpoint based states of the user interface; and

selectively rendering the extracted at least one object.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the at least one object corresponds to the current state of the user interface is an object that is farther, from a viewpoint of the current state, from another object, of the at least one object, meant to actually be seen on a screen displaying the 3D graphic objects from the viewpoint of the current state.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising transiting to the current state of the user interface according to an input of a state transition signal for transiting to the current state of the user interface, corresponding to a current viewpoint, from another state of the user interface, corresponding to another viewpoint, and performing the extracting of the at least one object,

wherein, in the extracting of the at least one object, the extracted at least one object corresponds to the transited to current state of the user interface.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein, in the transiting to the current state of the user interface according to the input of the state transition signal and performing of the extracting of the at least one object, the current state of the user interface is transited to by referring to a state transition table corresponding to each next state to which the other state of the user interface is transited from.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the extracting of the at least one object comprises:

retrieving an object listing corresponding to the current state, among object listings with respect to the plurality of objects respectively corresponding to the plurality of states of the user interface; and

selectively extracting objects included in the retrieved object list from the 3D graphic objects.

6. At least one medium comprising computer readable code to control at least one processing element to implement the method of claim 1.

7. A system rendering 3D graphic objects, comprising:

an object extraction unit to extract at least one object, from a plurality of 3D graphic objects, corresponding to a current state of a user interface, from a plurality of viewpoint based states of the user interface; and

a rendering unit to selectively render extracted objects.

8. A method of minimizing a number of rendering objects for rending 3D graphic objects, comprising:

culling at least one object, from a plurality of 3D graphic objects corresponding to a plurality of viewpoint based states of a user interface, corresponding to any one state of the user interface, from the plurality of states of the user interface; and

generating an object list with respect to the at least one culled object with reference to the one state of the user interface.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the at least one object is an object that is farther, from a viewpoint of the one state, from another object, of the one state of the user interface, meant to actually be seen on a screen displaying the 3D graphic objects from the viewpoint of the one state.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the culling of the at least one object comprises:

culling the at least one object based upon the object being included inside a view volume according to a viewpoint of the one state or intersecting with the view volume, from the plurality of 3D graphic objects.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the culling of the at least one object further comprises:

projecting each primitive forming culled objects onto the screen; and

culling the objects based on depth information of each projected primitive and any transparency information of corresponding culled objects.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the projecting of each primitive forming the culled objects onto the screen further comprises clipping a portion of a projected primitive extending outside the screen if the projected primitive intersects with the screen,

and in the culling of the at least one object, the at least one object is culled based on depth information of each primitive that does not intersect with the screen, depth information of each primitive whose portion intersects with the screen and is clipped, and transparency information of respective culled objects.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the culling of the at least one object based on the depth information of each projected primitive that does not intersect the screen and the transparency information of the respective culled objects comprises:

updating an identification (ID) buffer storing an ID value of an object expressed by pixels forming a depth buffer and the screen, for each pixel forming each projected primitive if a depth value of the pixel is a value that indicates that the pixel is closer to the screen than a depth value stored at a location corresponding to the pixel of the depth buffer storing depth values of pixels forming the screen; and

culling the at least one object by using an ID value finally stored in the ID buffer.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein the updating of the ID buffer comprises:

replacing the depth value stored at the location corresponding to the pixel of the depth buffer with the depth value of the pixel if the object including primitives is an opaque object, and replacing the ID value stored at the location corresponding to the pixel of the ID buffer with the ID value of the object including the primitives; and

storing the ID value of the object including the primitives at the location corresponding to the pixel of the ID buffer if the object including the primitives is a transparent object.

15. The method of claim 8, wherein the culling of the at least one object further comprises:

modifying 3D graphic objects, of the plurality of 3D objects, by referring to a rendering result of the 3D objects; and

culling the at least one object from the modified 3D graphic objects.

16. The method of claim 8, further comprising generating the plurality of 3D graphic objects before the culling of the at least one object.

17. At least one medium comprising computer readable code to control at least one processing element to implement the method of claim 8.

18. A method of minimizing a number of rendering objects for rending 3D graphic objects, comprising:

culling at least one object, from a plurality of 3D graphic objects corresponding to a plurality of viewpoint based states of a user interface, corresponding to any one state of the user interface, from the plurality of states of the user interface;

generating an object list with respect to the at least one culled object with reference to the one state of the user interface;

extracting the at least one object from the object list, corresponding to a current state of the user interface; and

selectively rendering the extracted at least one object.

19. At least one medium comprising computer readable code to control at least one processing element to implement the method of claim 18.

20. A system minimizing a number of rendering objects, comprising:

an object culling unit to cull at least one object, from a plurality of 3D graphic objects corresponding to a plurality of viewpoint based states of a user interface, corresponding to any one state of the user interface, from the plurality of states of the user interface; and

an object list generation unit to generate an object list with respect to the at least one culled object with reference to the one state of the user interface.

21. The apparatus of claim 20, further comprising an object generation unit to generate the plurality of 3D graphic objects.