Patent ID: 6975317

Claim:
A method for rendering a plurality of triangles in a graphics system, wherein, for each of the triangles, the method comprises: receiving information corresponding to the vertices of the triangle; computing a horizontal delta dx and a vertical delta dy for each edge of the triangle based on the received information; computing a major delta dM for each edge as the larger of the corresponding horizontal delta dx and vertical delta dy; determining a controlling edge of the triangle as the edge that attains the largest of the major deltas dM of the edges; determining a major axis of the triangle, wherein the major axis is the horizontal axis if the horizontal delta of the controlling edge is the major delta dM of the controlling edge, wherein the major axis is the vertical axis if the vertical delta of the controlling edge is the major delta dM of the controlling edge; generating start points on the controlling edge and corresponding end points on at least one complementary edge of the triangle, wherein each start point and corresponding end point defines a corresponding span, wherein said generating start points and end points operates in a direction of the major axis, wherein each span is oriented in a direction perpendicular to the major axis; identifying pixel locations in the spans based on the corresponding start points and end points; wherein said generating and identifying are performed in a pipelined fashion.