Patent ID: 7199806

Claim:
A graphical computing system comprising: a control unit and a set of edge processing units; wherein the control unit is configured to (a) receive a surface primitive, (b) transfer edge specifying information for each edge of the surface primitive to a corresponding one of the set of edge processing units, wherein each edge is processed by a different corresponding edge processing unit, and (c) transfer a horizontal address C X and a vertical address C Y of one current pixel to the edge processing units; wherein each of the edge processing units is configured to compute trimming information for the one current pixel with respect to the corresponding edge using the horizontal address C X and vertical address C Y , wherein the trimming information specifies a portion of the corresponding edge which intersects the area of the one current pixel; wherein the control unit is configured to collect the trimming information from the edge processing units, compose a micropolygon defined by the addresses C X and C Y of the one current pixel along with the collected trimming information, and transmit the micropolygon as output; wherein the micropolygon is identical to the portion of the area of the one current pixel that is within the surface primitive; and wherein rendered values for one or more samples within the micropolygon at least partially determine one or more of the pixel values used to display at least a portion of the surface primitive on a display device.