Patent ID: 7439988

Claim:
A clipping module, comprising: a mapping unit configured to map a graphics primitive onto a canonical representation, wherein the graphics primitive is defined by vertices having an initial order, and the mapping unit is configured to map the graphics primitive onto the canonical representation by reordering the vertices so as to have a canonical order that is invariant with respect to the initial order; and a clipping engine connected to the mapping unit, the clipping engine configured to clip the graphics primitive with respect to a clipping plane based on the canonical representation, wherein the canonical representation is defined with respect to the clipping plane so as to accelerate clipping the graphics primitive, wherein the mapping unit is configured to reorder the vertices by: determining which one of the vertices is positioned on one side of the clipping plane, while all remaining ones of the vertices are positioned on another side of the clipping plane; assigning a predetermined sequence position to the one of the vertices that is determined to be positioned on the one side of the clipping plane; and assigning respective sequence positions to the remaining ones of the vertices so as to retain a handedness specified by the initial order.