Patent ID: 7944453

Claim:
A computer-implemented method for extrapolating between resident mipmap levels of a texture map to produce texel values for a nonresident mipmap level of the texture map, comprising: computing an ideal level of detail (LOD) corresponding to an ideal mipmap level; computing a deltaLOD as a difference between the ideal LOD and an extrapolation threshold LOD that is a value greater than or equal to an LOD of a highest resolution resident mipmap level of the texture map that is stored in a memory; determining an extrapolation weight based on the deltaLOD; computing, by a processing unit, an extrapolated texel value that approximates a texel value of the ideal mipmap level using the extrapolation weight, first texel values from a mipmap whose LOD equals an integer portion of the extrapolation threshold LOD, and second texel values from a next-highest resolution resident mipmap level that is stored in the memory; and producing an image suitable for display using the extrapolated texel value.