Patent ID: 8068118

Claim:
A computer system for performing anisotropic texture mapping to produce filtered texture values, comprising: a memory configured to store a mip mapped texture; and a texture unit including a sample modification unit, a sample spacing unit, and a filter unit, wherein the sample modification is configured to compute a spread equal or greater than one texel for a first number of texture samples based on a mip map level weight and compute a second number of texture samples that is different than the first number of texture samples, for a first level of detail of the mip mapped texture using the spread, wherein the mip map level weight for a coarse level of detail of the mip mapped texture relative to the first level of detail is a fractional portion of a log base two of a minor axis length and the mip map level weight for a fine level of detail of the mip mapped texture relative to the first level of detail is a difference between one and the fractional portion of the log base two of the minor axis length; the sample spacing unit is configured to position the second number of texture samples along a major axis of anisotropy according to the spread; and the filter unit is configured to filter the second number of texture samples to produce a filtered texture value for an anisotropic pixel footprint.