Patent ID: 7075535

Claim:
A method of displaying visual content, said method comprising: generating a plurality of different levels of detail (LODs) of the visual content; displaying the visual content as an interpolation of said LODs while the visual content is navigated; and displaying a final image including at least a portion not as an interpolation of said LODs when said navigation substantially ceases, wherein prior to said final image being displayed, an intermediate final image is generated by interpolation from said plurality of said LODs, wherein each LOD is comprised of tiles and said final image or said intermediate final image is displayed by using tiles from several LODs displayed as composite tiles, wherein the tiles of each LOD are made available for entry into a frame buffer in an order that depends at least in part upon the LOD in which the tile is, or whether the tile is viewable presently, or the degree of foveation of such tile, and wherein viewable tiles are rendered first, and within said viewable tiles, tiles are rendered in order of increasing resolution, and within tiles of a similar resolution, tiles are rendered in foveated order, the method further comprising implementing irrational tiling.