Patent ID: 7075533

Claim:
A system for performing refraction mapping for an image having an object, the object being viewed along a line of sight and through a boundary between first and second at least semi-transparent media, a vector normal to the boundary being defined at an intersection of the line of sight and the boundary, the system comprising: a perspective transformation unit operable to project a three-dimensional version of the object on a two-dimensional texture plane using a perspective view transformation algorithm to obtain texture addresses on the texture plane, the texture plane being perpendicular to the line of sight and the projection being performed without regard to refraction; and a refraction determination unit operable to obtain at least one refraction vector for modifying the projection to take into account refraction of light at the boundary, the refraction vector representing an amount of displacement of at least one of the texture addresses to approximate the refraction, the refraction vector being a function of a component of the normal vector, wherein the line of sight defines a corresponding line of sight vector, v, which is parallel thereto and the refraction vector is a function of an angle between the normal vector and the line of sight vector.