Patent ID: 7372468

Claim:
A method of modifying a number of texture samples used to produce an anisotropically filtered texture value for a pixel footprint, comprising: determining a mip map level weight using a length of a minor axis of the pixel footprint; determining a spread between each of a first number of texture samples for a first level of detail of a mip mapped texture based on the mip map level weight; and increasing or reducing the first number of texture samples taken from a mipmap level of the mip mapped texture as a function of the spread to produce a second number of texture samples, wherein the second number of texture samples for a fine level of detail of the mip mapped texture relative to the first level of detail is equal to the length of a major axis of the pixel footprint divided by two raised to a power of the mip map level weight for a coarse level of detail of the mip mapped texture relative to the first level of detail, and the second number of texture samples for the coarse level of detail of the mip mapped texture is equal to the length of the major axis of the pixel footprint divided by two raised to a power of the mip map level weight for the fine level of detail of the mip mapped texture.