Block linear memory ordering of texture data

• US 7,916,149 B1
• Filed: 01/04/2005
• Issued: 03/29/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 01/04/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: NVIDIA Corporation
• Original Assignee: NVIDIA Corporation
• Inventors: Donovan, Walter E., Abdalla, Karim M., Kilgariff, Emmett M., McCormack, Joel J.
• Primary Examiner(s): Caschera; Antonio A
• Application Number:
  US11/029,940
• Time in Patent Office: 2,275 Days
• Field of Search: 345/582, 345/587, 345/530, 345/552
• US Class Current: 345/552
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 1/60 Memory management
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 15/04 Texture mapping

Abstract

A method of organizing memory for storage of texture data, in accordance with one embodiment of the invention, includes accessing a size of a mipmap level of a texture map. A block dimension may be determined based on the size of the mipmap level. A memory space (e.g., computer-readable medium) may be logically divided into a plurality of whole number of blocks of variable dimension. The dimension of the blocks is measured in units of gobs and each gob is of a fixed dimension of bytes. A mipmap level of a texture map may be stored in the memory space. A texel coordinate of said mipmap level may be converted into a byte address of the memory space by determining a gob address of a gob in which the texel coordinate resides and determining a byte address within the particular gob.

Claims

1. A computer-readable medium storing a plurality of instructions which when executed cause a computing device to implement a method comprising:

organizing a memory space into a plurality of whole number of blocks and each block into a whole number of gobs, wherein a dimension of each block is a variable number of said gobs but constant for a given mipmap level, a dimension of each gob is a fixed number of bytes, and a plurality of gobs are a fixed size of a page of said memory space, and wherein each block is arranged in a given order of gobs and each gob is arranged in a given order of bytes;

storing said mipmap level of a texture map into said organized memory space; and

converting a texel coordinate of said mipmap level into a byte address of said organized memory space.

2. The computer-readable medium according to claim 1, wherein said variable dimension, of said blocks, is a three dimensional measure.

3. The computer-readable medium according to claim 1, wherein said converting a texel coordinate of said mipmap level into a byte address comprises determining a gob address of a gob in which said texel coordinate resides.

4. The computer-readable medium according to claim 3, wherein said converting said texel coordinate of said mipmap level into said byte address of said organized memory space further comprises determining a byte address within said gob in which said texel coordinate resides.

5. The computer-readable medium according to claim 1, wherein a gob is less than a page in size.

6. The computer-readable medium according to claim 5, wherein a block is more than a page in size.

7. The computer-readable medium according to claim 5, wherein a block is less than a page in size.

8. The computer-readable medium according to claim 1, wherein said fixed dimension of each gob is a three dimensional measure.

9. The computer-readable medium according to claim 1, wherein said variable dimension is based on a size of said given mipmap level.

10. A computer-readable medium storing a plurality of instructions which when executed cause a computing device to implement a method comprising:

accessing a size of a given mipmap level of a texture mipmap;

automatically determining a block dimension in gobs on the fly as a function of a dimension of said given mipmap level, a gob dimension in texels and a base block dimension in gobs of a base mipmap level;

organizing a memory space into a plurality of whole number of blocks of variable dimension, wherein said block dimension is measured in units of gobs arranged in a given order in each block and wherein each gob is of a fixed dimension of bytes and provides a level of organization of said memory space for storing texels in addition to said blocks; and

storing said given mipmap level into said memory space.

11. The computer-readable medium according to claim 10, further comprising converting a texel coordinate of said given mipmap level into a byte address of said memory space by determining a gob address of a gob in which said texel coordinate resides and determining a byte address within said gob in which said texel coordinate resides.

12. The computer-readable medium according to claim 10, wherein said block dimension is reduced as said given mipmap level of said texture mipmap increases.

13. A computing device comprising:

a computer-readable medium, for storing texture data, wherein said computer-readable medium is logically divided into a first level of organization of a plurality of whole number of blocks, wherein each block is divided into a second level of organization of a plurality of whole number of gobs of texels of a same size, wherein a dimension in gobs of said plurality of blocks are dynamically adjusted as a function of a dimension of a miplevel of a mipmap, a partition size of said computer-readable medium and a configuration of said computer-readable medium comprising computing a block dimension in gobs for a given miplevel as a function of a dimension of said given miplevel, a gob dimension in texels and a base block dimension in gobs of a base miplevel, and wherein texels are arranged in a given order in each gob and gobs are arranged in a given order in each block; and

a processor, communicatively coupled to said computer-readable medium, for determining a color utilizing said texture data and a depth value for each pixel of a display and for mapping a coordinate of a texel to a byte address in said computer-readable medium by computing a gob offset value.

14. The computing device of claim 13, wherein said texture data comprises said mipmap.

15. The computing device of claim 14, wherein said plurality of blocks of said mipmap are arranged in an xyz ordering.

16. The computing device of claim 14, wherein said gobs are arranged in an xyz ordering in each block.

17. The computing device of claim 14, wherein texels are arranged in an xyz ordering in each gob.