Patent ID: 7626537

Claim:
A radar display system comprising: one or more displays; one or more radar data sources providing digital polar coordinate radar data; application processing apparatus to receive the digital polar coordinate radar data and provide one or more rectangular coordinate display parameters, wherein the one or more rectangular coordinate display parameters comprise at least polar to rectangular coordinate conversion information for use in converting the digital polar coordinate radar data to rectangular coordinate pixel radar image data and one or more decay rate parameters; and display processing apparatus comprising a central processing unit and a programmable graphics processing unit, wherein a rendering function program executable by the programmable graphics processing unit under control of the central processing unit generates a plurality of sequential display image frames for use in displaying at least a radar image on a display, and further wherein the rendering function program, to generate each of the plurality of the sequential display image frames, comprises executable code to: apply a decaying function to an accumulated radar history image frame based on the one or more decay rate parameters; and update the accumulated radar history image frame using rectangular coordinate pixel radar image data converted from digital polar coordinate radar data received from the application processing apparatus using at least the polar to rectangular coordinate conversion information, wherein applying the decaying function and updating the accumulated radar history image frame results in an updated and decayed accumulated radar history image frame for use in displaying at least a radar image on the display, and further wherein the updated and decayed accumulated radar history image frame used in displaying at least a radar image on the display is stored as an accumulated radar history image frame for use in generating a subsequent display image frame.