Patent ID: 6429876
Filing Date: 2002-08-06
Classification: G06T

Abstract:
A method for storing antialiasing pixel data, the method comprising:sampling a pixel in a predetermined manner to produce a pixel sample set, wherein the predetermined manner is such that absence of selected samples in the pixel sample set does not invalidate the pixel sample set as a representation of the pixel; determining if the pixel sample set can be reduced to a compressed sample set; when the pixel sample can be reduced to the compressed sample set, storing the compressed sample set in a first memory at a first memory location; and when the pixel sample set can not be reduced to the compressed sample set: determining a selected address in a second memory by; reading a counter; and determining if the counter has exceeded a memory address limit; when the counter has not exceeded the memory address limit, incrementing the counter by an increment step; when the counter has exceeded the memory address limit: determining a new address offset for the next available memory address based on a current address offset; and loading the counter with the next available memory address such that the new address offset becomes the current address offset; determining a storage portion of the pixel sample set based on the selected address, wherein the storage portion includes at least a portion of the pixel sample set, wherein samples included in the storage portion are determined based on the predetermined manner of sapling; storing the storage portion of the pixel sample set in the second memory at the selected address; and storing a pointer to the selected address in the first memory location.