Patent ID: 8674985

Claim:
A rendering method, comprising: selectively grouping transparent objects, using at least one processor, from among a previously grouped plurality of transparent objects distinct from a grouping of opaque objects of a plurality of objects including the transparent objects, wherein the selective grouping of the transparent objects is based upon a determination of whether bounding volumes of the transparent objects, whose ranges of depth values overlap each other, intersect in a 3 dimensional (3D) space; and rendering the selectively grouped objects and remaining objects, of the previously grouped plurality of transparent objects not grouped into the selectively grouped objects by the selective grouping of transparent objects, according to an order based on respective distances between each object in the selectively grouped objects and a viewpoint and the respective distances between the remaining objects and the viewpoint, wherein in the rendering of the selectively grouped objects and the remaining objects, objects included in the selectively grouped objects are rendered according to an order based on respective distances between the viewpoint and each unit element forming each object included in the selectively grouped objects.