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Method and apparatus for determining visible surfaces

  • US 5,825,363 A
  • Filed: 05/24/1996
  • Issued: 10/20/1998
  • Est. Priority Date: 05/24/1996
  • Status: Expired due to Term
First Claim
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1. A method for determining each visible surface of a scene comprising a sequence of frames, each having a plurality of geometric shapes and corresponding to a plurality of pixels, the scene having a background remaining constant for the frame sequence, to support a presentation on a pixel-oriented output device of an image of the scene, comprising the steps of:

  • (a) initializing a frame number variable, each frame associated with a frame number;

    (b) initializing a working frame buffer by copying background data of a background frame buffer to the working frame buffer, the background data defined by values for pixels corresponding to the background, and initializing a working Z buffer by copying background depth data of a background Z buffer to the working Z buffer, the background depth data represented by depth values defining spatial relationships between a view point reference and geometric shapes at the pixels of the background;

    (c) responsive to initializing the working frame buffer and the working Z buffer, for a selected frame corresponding to the frame number variable, rendering the geometric shapes into the working frame buffer and the working Z buffer;

    (d) incrementing the frame number variable; and

    (e) repeating steps (b)-(d) until the frame number variable is greater than the number of frames within the frame sequence.

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