Patent ID: 7116335

Claim:
A texturing system for use in a three-dimensional imaging system, comprising: memory means for storing mip-map data for use in texturing an image, the mip-map data comprising a hierarchical series of mip-maps of different levels of decreasing resolution, said memory means configured to store the mip-map data in compressed form as selected and compressed code values defining principle colors and other compressed code values defining intermediate colors that are formed by selected weighted averages of the principle colors, with the code values defining the intermediate colors being weighted averages of the code values of selected principle colors; input means for receiving input data indicating the type of mip-map data required and the level of the mip-map or mip-maps from which the data is to be obtained; control means coupled to said input means and to said memory means for retrieving from said memory means the compressed mip-map data for a selected mip-map level required in accordance with the input data; cache means coupled to said control means for storing portions of the compressed mip-map data retrieved from said memory means for the selected mip-map level; decompression means connected to said cache means for receiving from said cache means the compressed mip-map data, said decompression means configured to filter the compressed code values of the mip-map data to generate decompressed mip-map data; lower-level mip-map generator means coupled to said cache means for receiving the decompressed mip-map data for the selected mip-map level, said lower-level mip-map generator configured to produce at least a portion of the mip-map for the next below mip-map level in the hierarchical series of mip-maps for which a portion is held in the cache means; and trilinear interpolator means coupled to said decompression means to receive the decompressed mip-map data for the selected level of mip-map and to said lower level mip-map generator to receive mip-map data for the next below mip-map level in the hierarchical series and to interpolate an output texel from input texels contained in the mip-map data from the two received mip-map levels.