Cross-Platform Rendering Engine

• US 20150243257A1
• Filed: 02/24/2014
• Published: 08/27/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 02/24/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: McDonald, Dave, Witman, Ben, Joe, Michael Y., Ul Haq, Faaez
• Granted Patent: US 10,157,593 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 12/0862 with prefetch
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/14 Digital output to display device ; Cooperation and interconnection of the display device with other functional units
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/451 Execution arrangements for user interfaces
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 1/20 Processor architectures; Processor configuration, e.g. pipelining
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 11/001 Texturing; Colouring; Generation of texture or colour inpainting G06T5/77
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 5/363 Graphics controllers

Abstract

A cross-platform rendering engine. The cross-platform rendering engine serves as an intermediary between the application and the operating system for displaying application content on the screen allowing software developers to write platform-agnostic application code. The application sends content to the cross-platform rendering engine in the form of resource-efficient content descriptions describing the content to be displayed. In turn, cross-platform rendering engine stores the content descriptions and provides rasterized images generated from the content descriptions to the compositor as needed. In the event that a content description corresponding to the texture needed by the compositor is not available, the cross-platform rendering engine pulls the content description from the application. By producing rasterized images from a user interface thread on behalf of the application rather than waiting for the application thread, the cross-platform rendering engine improves the overall responsiveness of the application and contributes to a better user experience.

Claims

1. A method for rendering computer-generated display components associated with an application for display on a computer-enabled display surface, the method comprising the acts of:

receiving one or more commands describing how to draw one or more computer-generated display components associated with the application content of an application;

storing the one or more commands in one or more content descriptions for use by a rendering engine operating independently from the application;

rendering the one or more computer-generated display components from the one or more content descriptions with the rendering engine for display by the system; and

providing the computer-generated display components for display on the computer-enabled display surface.

2. The method of claim 1 further comprising the acts of:

requesting the application to provide commands describing how to draw one or more computer-generated display components for which the one or more content descriptions associated with the one or more computer-generated display components are not currently stored;

immediately rendering the one or more computer-generated display components from the commands; and

storing the commands in one or more content descriptions for subsequent use.

3. The method of claim 2 further comprising the act of receiving a request to render the one or more computer-generated display components for display on the computer-enabled display surface.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein the one or more commands and the one or more content descriptions are platform-agnostic and the act of rendering the one or more computer-generated display components from the one or more content descriptions with the rendering engine for display by the system generates platform-specific computer-generated display components.

5. The method of claim 1 further comprising the act of adding one or more content descriptions associated with the same virtual texture representing application content to a collection of content descriptions.

6. The method of claim 5 further comprising the acts of:

determining that at least three content descriptions in the collection of content descriptions have rendered the same at least one pixel;

requesting a new content description for the portion of the virtual texture enclosed by a bounding box encompassing the portions of the virtual texture drawn by the at least three content descriptions from the application; and

replacing the at least three content descriptions that rendered the same at least one pixel with the new content description in the collection of content descriptions.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein:

the act of receiving one or more commands describing how to draw one or more computer-generated display components of the application occurs in a first process;

the act of rendering the one or more computer-generated display components from the one or more content descriptions with the rendering engine for display by the system occurs in a second process; and

the act of storing the one or more commands in one or more content descriptions further comprises the act of passing the one or more content descriptions from the first process to the second process.

8. The method of claim 7 further comprising the act of not allowing the application to send commands to the second process.

9. A system rendering application content for display on a computer-enabled display surface comprising:

a first content description memory for storing a content description containing commands received from an application generating application content, the commands describing how to draw the application content; and

a processor executing the application and a rendering engine for rendering the application content for display on a computer-enabled display surface from the content description, the rendering engine being in communication with the first memory and the application.

10. The system of claim 9 wherein the rendering engine further comprises a frontend in communication with a backend, the frontend in communication with and receiving the commands from the application, the backend rendering the application content from the content description.

11. The system of claim 10 wherein the first content description memory is associated with the frontend, the system further comprising a second content description memory associated with the backend.

12. The system of claim 11 wherein the rendering engine includes a direct communication channel between the frontend and the backend, the frontend passing content descriptions from the first content description memory to the second content description memory via the communication channel.

13. The system of claim 10 further comprising:

an application thread associated with the frontend; and

a user interface thread associated with the backend.

14. The system of claim 13 further comprising a rendering thread for rasterizing the content descriptions into raster images for display on the computer-enabled display surface, the rendering thread responsive to requests to render content send by the user interface thread.

15. The system of claim 9 wherein the rendering engine is in communication with a compositor responsible for compositing a final image for display on the computer-enabled display surface.

16. A computer readable medium containing computer executable instructions which, when executed by a computer, perform a method for displaying application content on a computer-enabled display surface, the method comprising the acts of:

receiving a content description describing how to draw one or more computer-generated display components from an application thread executed in a first process tier by a rendering engine frontend executed in the first process tier;

storing the content description in a first collection of content descriptions maintained by the rendering engine frontend;

passing the content description to a rendering engine backend executed in a second process tier via a dedicated communication channel between the rendering engine frontend and the rendering engine backend;

storing the content description in a second collection of content descriptions maintained by the rendering engine backend;

rendering an image corresponding to the content of the content description by the rendering engine backend; and

sending the image from the rendering engine backend to a compositor for display on a computer-enabled display surface.

17. The computer readable medium of claim 16 wherein the method further comprises the act of responding to a request to manipulate a selected area of application content at the rendering engine backend using one or more content descriptions associated with the selected area of application content stored in the second collection of content descriptions.

18. The computer readable medium of claim 17 wherein the request to manipulate a selected area of application content is a request to zoom or a request to pan.

19. The computer readable medium of claim 16 wherein the method further comprises the act of grouping the content description with other content descriptions associated with a selected area of application content generated by the application into a content description composite.

20. The computer readable medium of claim 16 wherein the method further comprises the act of requesting a new content description from the application to replace three or more content descriptions drawing to at least some of the same pixels of a virtual texture representing the application content.