Generation of jittered sub-pixel samples using programmable sub-pixel offsets

• US 7,050,068 B1
• Filed: 12/02/2003
• Issued: 05/23/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 12/02/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: NVIDIA Corporation
• Original Assignee: NVIDIA Corporation
• Inventors: Bastos, Rui M., Carr, Nathan A.
• Primary Examiner(s): TSENG, CHENG YUAN
• Application Number:
  US10/726,125
• Time in Patent Office: 903 Days
• Field of Search: 345/611, 345/613, 345/614, 345/612
• US Class Current: 345/613
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 11/001 Texturing; Colouring; Generation of texture or colour inpainting G06T5/77
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 11/40 Filling a planar surface by adding surface attributes, e.g. colour or texture

Abstract

Jittered sub-pixel samples are used to reduce aliasing during rendering in a graphics pipeline. Sub-pixel samples are jittered using programmed sub-pixel offset values, permitting an application to select not only the number of sub-pixel samples within a pixel, but also the position of each sub-pixel sample within the pixel.

Claims

1. A method of determining sub-pixel sample positions for a pixel position to reducing aliasing, comprising:

reading a programmed first sub-pixel offset value;

reading a programmed second sub-pixel offset value; and

computing a jittered sub-pixel sample position using the first sub-pixel offset value, the second sub-pixel offset value, and the pixel position, wherein the reading of the programmed first sub-pixel offset value and the second sub-pixel offset value is partially based on at least a portion of the pixel position and wherein the number of pixel offset values stored is dependent on the resolution of the image to be displayed.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

computing a depth value of a fragment for each jittered sub-pixel sample position.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

determining sub-pixel sample coverage for a fragment associated with the pixel position.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

computing a color value of a fragment.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the color value of a fragment is computed at a sub-pixel position within a pixel boundary.

6. The method of claim 4, wherein the color value of a fragment is computed at a pixel position within a pixel boundary.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

computing a color value of a fragment for each jittered sub-pixel sample position.