Patent ID: 6704018
Filing Date: 2004-03-09
Classification: G06T

Abstract:
A graphic computing apparatus comprising:a shape divider which divide a unit shape of a surface of an object present in a three-dimensional space into a plurality of subpolygons two-dimensionally arranged in terms of their neighboring relationship and having an arbitrary size, to generate a subpolygon mesh; a vertex processor which performs at least one of arithmetic operations of vertex displacement, coordinate conversion, coloring, and shading using various programs in units of vertexes of subpolygons of the subpolygon mesh to obtain parameters required for drawing; a rendering processor which computes drawing data in units of pixels on the basis of the parameters obtained by the vertex processor and picture data for texture mapping; and a frame memory which stores the drawing data as picture data together with at least data for texture mapping required for the rendering processor to compute the drawing data; and a frame memory readout route which reads out at least the picture data for texture mapping from the frame memory, and transfers the readout picture data to the vertex processor, the vertex processor reading at least the picture data for texture mapping corresponding to each vertex of the subpolygon mesh from the frame memory via the frame memory readout route, and computing the parameters required for drawing in units of pixels of the subpolygons for each vertex of the subpolygon meshes using the read data.