Patent Document ID: 8576235
Application ID: 12834840
Patent Status: 1

Claim One:
1. In a computer-implemented animation or gaming system that maintains a geometric model space having coordinates in order to generate one or more images representing virtual objects in that geometric model space within a time allotted for a computing system to generate the one or more images from a camera view position in the geometric model space based on a computer-readable input of a set of virtual objects positioned in the geometric model space and parameters of the geometric model space, wherein the animation or gaming system will generate a display of the objects in the geometric model space as viewed from the camera view position and perform operations based on visibility, a method of computing a camera path, comprising: dividing the geometric model space into clear subvolumes, wherein a subvolume defines a space within the geometric model space that has nonzero volume and a clear subvolume is a subvolume that does not contain any virtual objects that are not allowed to be traversed; building a graph structure, representable in electronic storage, the graph structure having nodes representing transition locations between adjacent clear subvolumes and edges representing transitions from one transition location in a given clear subvolume to another transition location in the given clear subvolume; computing visibility weights for pairs of clear subvolumes, independent of a camera focus point and/or independent of the camera view position, wherein a visibility weight corresponds to a visibility measure between the clear subvolumes of the pair; generating a computer-readable pair data structure having values corresponding to the visibility weights; determining a path time period over which the camera view position is to change from a start point to an end point along a camera path; determining a camera focus point in the geometric model space, wherein the camera focus point is a point or location in the geometric model space that the animation or gaming system will attempt to keep in view, wherein view is determined, at least in part, based on at least an approximation of whether opaque virtual objects are positioned along a ray spanning from the camera focus point to the camera view position as the system moves the camera view position over the camera path; determining a preferred coarse path along the graph structure from a starting clear subvolume to an ending clear subvolume taking into account the visibility weights for pairs of clear subvolumes wherein one of the pair is a subvolume containing the camera focus point; and determining the camera path from the preferred coarse path.