MULTI-SAMPLE SURFACE PROCESSING USING ONE SAMPLE

• US 20140267315A1
• Filed: 03/15/2013
• Published: 09/18/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 03/15/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: NVIDIA Corporation
• Original Assignee: NVIDIA Corporation
• Inventors: Minkin, Alexander Lev, Moreton, Henry Packard, Uralsky, Yury, Lum, Eric Brian, Kirkland, Dale L., Heinrich, Steven James, Bastos, Rui Manuel, Kilgariff, Emmett M., Bergland, Tyson, Brown, Patrick R., Bolz, Jeffrey Alan
• Granted Patent: US 9,262,797 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 345/501
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 1/60 Memory management
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 11/40 Filling a planar surface by adding surface attributes, e.g. colour or texture
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 5/70 Denoising; Smoothing

Abstract

A system, method, and computer program product are provided for multi-sample processing. The multi-sample pixel data is received and an encoding state associated with the multi-sample pixel data is determined. Data for one sample of a multi-sample pixel and the encoding state are provided to a processing unit. The one sample of the multi-sample pixel is processed by the processing unit to generate processed data for the one sample that represents processed multi-sample pixel data for all samples of the multi-sample pixel or two or more samples of the multi-sample pixel.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

receiving multi-sample pixel data;

determining an encoding state associated with the multi-sample pixel data;

providing data for one sample of a multi-sample pixel to a processing unit;

providing the encoding state to the processing unit;

processing the one sample of the multi-sample pixel by the processing unit to generate processed data for the one sample that represents processed multi-sample pixel data for all samples of the multi-sample pixel or two or more samples of the multi-sample pixel.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the encoding state indicates that the data for the one sample of the pixel represents the multi-sample pixel data for all samples of the multi-sample pixel or the two or more samples of the multi-sample pixel.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein a sample mask is associated with the multi-sample pixel that indicates which samples of the multi-sample pixel are represented by the processed multi-sample pixel data.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

determining whether other processed data is stored in a buffer for the multi-sample pixel;

determining that the other processed data does not correspond to any samples of the multi-sample pixel that are represented by the processed multi-sample pixel data;

storing the sample mask and the processed data for the one sample in the buffer; and

tracking coverage of a tile that includes the multi-sample pixel.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

storing the processed data for the one sample in a buffer; and

updating a tile coverage mask to indicate that the processed multi-sample pixel data is stored in the buffer.

6. The method of claim 5, further comprising:

determining that all multi-sample pixels in a tile are covered based on the tile coverage mask; and

writing the processed data for the one sample and other processed data for one sample of each additional multi-sample pixel in the tile to a memory.

7. The method of claim 5, further comprising:

determining that all multi-sample pixels in a tile are covered based on the tile coverage mask; and

writing the processed data for the one sample and the encoding state a memory.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the determining the encoding state comprises:

comparing the multi-sample pixel data for each sample of the multi-sample pixel; and

determining that the data for the one sample of the multi-sample pixel represents data for all samples of the multi-sample pixel.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the determining the encoding state comprises:

comparing the multi-sample pixel data for each sample of the multi-sample pixel; and

determining that the data for the one sample of the multi-sample pixel represents data for the two or more samples of the multi-sample pixel.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the encoding state indicates that a single sample of a multi-sample pixel represents all of the samples of a sample subset of the multi-sample pixel.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein a number of samples included in the multi-sample pixel is specified by a multi-sample mode.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein the two or more samples corresponds to a number of samples of the multi-sample pixel that are stored in a single cache line.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein the multi-sample data is read from a memory, and further comprising receiving a multi-sample load instruction that returns the encoding state and the one sample of the multi-sample pixel.

14. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing instructions that, when executed by a processor, cause the processor to perform steps comprising:

receiving the multi-sample pixel data;

determining an encoding state associated with the multi-sample pixel data;

providing data for one sample of a multi-sample pixel to a processing unit;

providing the encoding state to the processing unit;

processing the one sample of the multi-sample pixel by the processing unit to generate processed data for the one sample that represents processed multi-sample pixel data for all samples of the multi-sample pixel or two or more samples of the multi-sample pixel.

15. A system comprising:

a memory storing multi-sample pixel data; and

a load/store unit that is coupled between the memory and a processing unit, and configured to;

receive the multi-sample pixel data;

determine an encoding state associated with the multi-sample pixel data;

provide data for one sample of a multi-sample pixel to the processing unit; and

provide the encoding state to the processing unit; and

the processing unit that is configured to;

process the one sample of the multi-sample pixel by the processing unit to generate processed data for the one sample that represents processed multi-sample pixel data for all samples of the multi-sample pixel or two or more samples of the multi-sample pixel.

16. The system of claim 15, wherein the encoding state indicates that the data for the one sample of the pixel represents the multi-sample pixel data for all samples of the multi-sample pixel or the two or more samples of the multi-sample pixel.

17. The system of claim 15, wherein the load/store unit is further configured to:

compare the multi-sample pixel data for each sample of the multi-sample pixel; and

determine whether the data for the one sample of the multi-sample pixel represents data for all samples of the two or more samples of the multi-sample pixel to determine the encoding state.

18. The system of claim 15, wherein the two or more samples corresponds to a number of samples of the multi-sample pixel that are stored in a single cache line.

19. The system of claim 15, wherein the load/store unit is further configured to:

store the processed data for the one sample in a buffer; and

update a tile coverage mask to indicate that the processed data is stored in the buffer for the multi-sample pixel.

20. The system of claim 15, wherein the multi-sample data is read from the memory in response to a multi-sample load instruction, and the load/store unit is further configured to return the encoding state and the one sample of the multi-sample pixel.