Patent ID: 7454320

Claim:
A hardware graphics pipeline-implemented method for generating a solution to a partial differential equation in a hardware graphics pipeline, comprising: receiving input in the hardware graphics pipeline; processing the input to generate the solution to the partial differential equation utilizing the hardware graphics pipeline; and generating output utilizing the hardware graphics pipeline for display; wherein the solution to the partial differential equation is generated utilizing the hardware graphics pipeline for enhancing graphics processing operations performed by the hardware graphics pipeline; wherein the graphics processing operations performed by the hardware graphics pipeline are enhanced by determining a location of surfaces or objects for rendering purposes utilizing the solution to the partial differential equation generated utilizing the hardware graphics pipeline; wherein the input includes a local area of textures used to sample a texture map to generate a modified local area of textures; wherein the processing further includes determining whether the solution has converged; wherein the determining whether the solution has converged includes calculating errors and concluding that the solution has converged based on the calculation of the errors; wherein the determining whether the solution has converged further includes summing the errors, and concluding that the solution has conversed if the sum of errors is less than a predetermined amount.