Reducing shading by merging fragments from the adjacent primitives

• US 9,626,795 B2
• Filed: 12/17/2013
• Issued: 04/18/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 12/17/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Intel Corporation
• Original Assignee: Intel Corporation
• Inventors: Sathe, Rahul P.
• Primary Examiner(s): CHEN, FRANK S
• Application Number:
  US14/108,419
• Publication Number:
  US 20150170410A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,218 Days
• Field of Search: None
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 15/005 General purpose rendering architectures
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 15/80 Shading
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 17/20 Finite element generation, e.g. wire-frame surface description, tesselation

Abstract

Instead of shading a triangle from the rasterizer as soon as it is known that there is a sample inside the triangle, in accordance with one embodiment, shading is delayed until the triangle beside it, called the neighboring triangle, is received. If there is a neighboring triangle facing the same way, with non-mutually exclusive coverage, meaning that it is not overlapping the same region, then the shader shades only once for the pair of triangles. That is, two separate fragments are merged and treated as one fragment. Specifically, the fragment that is over the pixel center is the one that is used and the other fragment is replaced by merging. The merger happens only over the extent of a pixel and more than one primitive is not shaded at a time. However, multiple merges within a 2×2 block of pixels are possible.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

merging two fragments from neighboring primitives that cover the same pixel; and

determining which of the two fragments covers the pixel'"'"'s center; and

only shading the fragment that covers the pixel'"'"'s center and refraining from shading a merged fragment that does not cover the pixel'"'"'s center.

2. The method of claim 1 including delaying shading until information about a neighboring primitive is available.

3. The method of claim 1 including merging untessellated primitives.

4. The method of claim 1 including merging in tessellated meshes.

5. The method of claim 1 including merging if the two fragments face the same way and have mutually exclusive coverage.

6. The method of claim 1 including shading only one primitive at a time.

7. The method of claim 1 including only shading the fragment with largest coverage.

8. The method of claim 1 including using multi-sampled antialiasing.

9. The method of claim 1 including determining whether a merged fragment points to one shading quad and no fragment points to another shading quad.

10. The method of claim 9 including, if so, deleting the another shading quad.

11. One or more non-transitory computer readable media storing instructions executed by a processor to perform a method comprising:

merging two fragments from neighboring primitives that cover the same pixel;

determining which of the two fragments covers the pixel'"'"'s center; and

only shading the fragment that covers the pixel'"'"'s center and refraining from shading a merged fragment that does not cover the pixel'"'"'s center.

12. The media of claim 11, said method including delaying shading until information about a neighboring primitive is available.

13. The media of claim 11, said method including merging untessellated primitives.

14. The media of claim 11, said method including merging in tessellated meshes.

15. The media of claim 11, said method including merging if the two fragments face the same way and have mutually exclusive coverage.

16. The media of claim 11, said method including shading only one primitive at a time.

17. The media of claim 11, said method including only shading the fragment with largest coverage.

18. The media of claim 11, said method including using multi-sampled antialiasing.

19. The media of claim 11, said method including determining whether a merged fragment points to one shading quad and no fragment points to another shading quad.

20. The media of claim 19, said method including, if so, deleting the another shading quad.

21. An apparatus comprising:

a processor to merge two fragments from neighboring primitives that cover the same pixel, determine which of the two fragments covers the pixel'"'"'s center, and only shade the fragment that covers the pixel'"'"'s center and refrain from shading a merged fragment that does not cover the pixel'"'"'s center; and

a storage coupled to said processor.

22. The apparatus of claim 21, said processor to delay shading until information about a neighboring primitive is available.

23. The apparatus of claim 21, said processor to merge untessellated primitives.

24. The apparatus of claim 21, said processor to merge in tessellated meshes.

25. The apparatus of claim 21, said processor to merge if the two fragments face the same way and have mutually exclusive coverage.

26. The apparatus of claim 21, said processor to shade only one primitive at a time.

27. The apparatus of claim 21, said processor to only shade the fragment with largest coverage.

28. The apparatus of claim 21 including a display communicatively coupled to the processor.

29. The apparatus of claim 21 including a battery coupled to said processor.

30. The apparatus of claim 21 including firmware and a module to update said firmware.