Patent ID: 6608630
Filing Date: 2003-08-19
Classification: G06F,G06T,G09G,H04N

Abstract:
A method of blending a plurality of graphics images, each graphics image having at least one line of graphics contents, the method comprising the steps of:initializing one of a plurality of line buffers, all the line buffers together not being capable of completely storing at least one of the graphics images, by loading said one line buffer with data that represents transparent black; obtaining control of said one line buffer through clock synchronization with a memory clock for a compositing operation; compositing a corresponding line of graphics contents from each of the graphics images into said one line buffer by blending the graphics contents with an existing content of said one line buffer by applying alpha values to both the graphics contents and the existing content, starting with the corresponding line of graphics contents from the first graphics image to be blended and until all of the corresponding lines of graphics contents have been composited to generate a corresponding line of blended graphics contents; switching clock from the memory clock to a display clock by synchronizing said one line buffer with the display clock; providing the blended graphics contents of said one line buffer to a graphics filter to be used for spatial filtering to generate a filtered graphics image; and releasing said one line buffer from the graphics filter when its blended graphics contents are no longer used to generate the filtered graphics image, wherein the graphics surfaces can have multiple different sizes and have arbitrary spatial relationships with one another.