Patent ID: 8878870

Claim:
An apparatus comprising: a first storage medium configured to store a table comprising information about respective positions and sizes of a plurality of rectangular blocks, wherein the plurality of rectangular blocks substantially forms an arbitrary shape object of a first plane; at least one overlay engine operatively coupled with the table, wherein the at least one overlay engine is associated with the first plane, and wherein the at least one overlay engine requests the information about the respective positions and the sizes of the plurality of rectangular blocks to provide graphics overlay of the arbitrary shape object, wherein the plurality of rectangular blocks forming the arbitrary shape object of the first plane define hidden regions in a second plane that underlies the first plane, wherein the second plane includes (i) the hidden regions and (ii) non-hidden regions that are not to be hidden by the arbitrary shape object of the first plane while the second plane is being displayed; a second storage medium configured to store data associated with pixels of the second plane; a filtering module coupled to the second storage medium, wherein the filtering module is configured to receive a request to transfer, to a display buffer, data associated with pixels of a first region of the second plane from the second storage medium, determine whether the first region of the second plane is (i) within the hidden regions or (ii) within the non-hidden regions, in response to determining that the first region of the second plane is within the hidden regions, refrain from accessing the second storage medium to retrieve data associated with pixels of the first region of the second plane, and in response to (i) receiving the request to transfer data associated with pixels of the first region of the second plane from the second storage medium and (ii) determining that the first region of the second plane is within the hidden regions, generate data corresponding to the first region of the second plane, wherein the filtering module does not access the second storage medium to generate the data, and wherein the generated data corresponding to the first region of the second plane is different from data that are (i) stored in the second storage medium and (ii) associated with pixels of the first region of the second plane, and transfer the generated data to the display buffer; and a display configured to display (i) the first plane having the arbitrary shape object formed from the plurality of rectangular blocks, and (ii) the second plane excluding the hidden regions, wherein the first plane graphically overlays the second plane.