Patent ID: 7304648

Claim:
A method of generating one or more linear blends from a list of one or more fill-paths defining a current gradient fill portion, and at least one new fill-path, where the fill-paths each comprise a single colored parallelogram, the method comprising the steps of: (a) adding one said new fill-path to said list to become a most-recent fill-path in said list, if each condition of a set thereof is met, otherwise proceeding to step (c), said set comprising at least one condition, said one condition comprising a difference in color between the color of the new fill-path and the color of the most-recent fill-path in said list being no greater than an error factor, and said error factor is changed from at least one previously used error factor for said list of fill-paths due to dependence of the error factor on the difference in color between the most-recent and the second-most-recent fill-paths in said list; (b) repeating said step (a) for each remaining said new fill-path; (c) generating a plurality of linear blends from the first fill-path in said list to the most-recent fill-path in said list such that said gradient fill portion represented by said fill-paths is approximated with a least number of linear blends; and d) outputting the generated linear blends to an outer means being at least one of the storage device for storing the linear blends and a display device for displaying the linear blends.