Dynamically reconfigurable graphics layer system and method

• US 8,884,981 B2
• Filed: 09/04/2007
• Issued: 11/11/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 09/04/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Original Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Inventors: Boettcher, Jesse W., Huang, Szu-Wen, Avkarogullari, Gokhan
• Primary Examiner(s): Johnson, M Good
• Application Number:
  US11/899,026
• Publication Number:
  US 20090058872A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,625 Days
• Field of Search: 345/501, 345/619
• US Class Current: 345/619
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/451 Execution arrangements for user interfaces

Abstract

A method of displaying a user interface in a portable electronic device is provided. The method includes displaying a user interface via a graphics layer attached to a software renderer, detaching the graphics layer from the software renderer, and attaching the graphics layer to one or more of a plurality of hardware layers, such that the display of the graphics layer is facilitated by one or more features of at least one of the hardware layers. An electronic device is provided that includes a display, a processor coupled to the display and configured to provide a plurality of hardware layers, and a user interface comprising a graphics layer, wherein the display of the graphics layer is facilitated by one or more features of at least one of the hardware layers, wherein the graphics layer dynamically attaches to or detaches from one or more of the plurality of hardware layers.

Claims

1. A method of displaying graphics on an electronic device, comprising:

displaying an element of a user interface via a graphics layer attached to a software renderer of the electronic device;

detaching the graphics layer from the software renderer of the electronic device when an operation on the graphics layer is more efficiently executed in one or more of a plurality of hardware layers of the electronic device than the software renderer of the electronic device; and

attaching the graphics layer to the one or more hardware layers of the electronic device, wherein at least two of the hardware layers are dedicated to performing different operations such that the graphics layer is attached to a respective hardware layer based on the operation to be performed on the graphics layer.

2. The method of claim 1, comprising facilitating the display of one or more features using at least one of the plurality of hardware layers.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein facilitating the display of the one or more features comprises changing opacity, moving, resizing, rotating, blurring, pseudocoloring, or any combination thereof.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein attaching the graphics layer comprises performing a color format conversion, recalculating coordinates for a plurality of objects of the user interface, converting from a first pixel format to a second pixel format or any combination thereof.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the plurality of hardware layers include a first hardware layer that comprises hardware rotators that rotate the graphics layer when the graphics layer is attached to the first hardware layer.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the plurality of hardware layers include a first hardware layer dedicated to changing opacity of the graphics layer when the graphics layer is attached to the first hardware layer.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the plurality of hardware layers include a video hardware layer dedicated to the display of video when the graphics layer is attached to the video hardware layer.

8. A method of displaying graphics on an electronic device, comprising:

displaying an element of a user interface via a graphics layer attached to one or more of a plurality of hardware layers of the electronic device, wherein the plurality of hardware layers comprise two or more hardware layers dedicated to performing different operations and wherein the graphics layer is attached to a respective hardware layer based on the operation to be performed on the element of the user interface when the operation on the element of the user interface is more efficiently executed in the respective hardware layer than a software renderer of the electronic device;

detaching the graphics layer from the one or more of the plurality of hardware layers of the electronic device; and

attaching the graphics layer to the software renderer of the electronic device.

9. The method of claim 8, comprising facilitating the display of one or more features using at least one of the plurality of hardware layers.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the one or more features comprises changing opacity, rotating, resizing, moving, blurring, pseudo-coloring, or any combination thereof.

11. The method of claim 8, wherein attaching the graphics layer comprises performing a color format conversion, recalculating coordinates for a plurality of objects of the user interface, converting from a first pixel format to a second pixel format, or any combination thereof.

12. The method of claim 8, comprising applying one or more features to a plurality of elements of the user interface.

13. An electronic device, comprising:

a display;

a processor coupled to the display and configured to provide a plurality of hardware layers; and

a user interface comprising a plurality of graphics layers, wherein display of at least one graphics layer of the plurality of graphics layers is facilitated by one or more features of at least one of the plurality of hardware layers, wherein the at least one graphics layer dynamically attaches to and detaches from at least one of the plurality of hardware layers based on specialized functionality performed by a respective hardware layer that is not performed by a different hardware layer;

wherein the processor is capable of receiving an operation to be performed on a selected graphics layer; and

wherein the processor attaches the selected graphics layer to one or more of the hardware layers when the processor determines that operation on the graphics layer is more efficiently executed in the one or more plurality of hardware layers.

14. The electronic device of claim 13, wherein the electronic device comprises at least one of a media player, a cellular phone, or a personal data organizer, or any combination thereof.

15. The electronic device of claim 13, wherein the display comprises an LCD and wherein the plurality of hardware layers comprises a plurality of LCD controller registers.

16. The electronic device of claim 13, comprising a software renderer, and wherein the software renderer comprises a software compositing pipeline.

17. The electronic device of claim 13, wherein the display comprises a touch screen, and wherein the user interface is displayed on the touch screen.

18. The electronic device of claim 13, wherein the one or more of the plurality of hardware layers are dynamically selected for attachment based on the one or more features.

19. The electronic device of claim 13, wherein the one or more features comprises changing opacity, rotating, resizing, moving, blurring, pseudo-coloring, or any combination thereof.

20. A method for performing display operations, comprising:

determining a graphics operation to be performed on a graphics layer of an interface of an electronic device, wherein the graphics operation comprises one of a rotation or an opacity change; and

dynamically switching between software and hardware rendering of the graphics layer, wherein the dynamic switching comprises attaching the graphics layer to a respective hardware layer dedicated to performing the graphics operation when the operation on the graphics layer is more efficiently executed by hardware rendering than software rendering; and

performing the graphics operation using the hardware rendering.

21. The method of claim 20, wherein the graphics operation comprises changing the opacity of, resizing, rotating, moving, blurring, or pseudo-coloring the graphics layer.

22. An electronic device, comprising:

a display; and

a processor coupled to the display and configured to render a graphics layer on the display and switch between software-based rendering and hardware-based rendering based on an operation performed on the graphics layer;

wherein hardware-based rendering is selected when the operation performed on the graphics layer is more efficiently executed by hardware-based rendering than software-based rendering;

wherein the hardware-based rendering is performed by two or more hardware layers that each perform different graphics operations; and

such that the operation to be performed on the graphics layer determines which hardware layer is used in the hardware-based rendering.

23. The electronic device of claim 22, wherein the processor renders the graphics layer using hardware-based rendering during a transition to another graphics layer.