HIDDEN SURFACE REMOVAL IN GRAPHICS PROCESSING SYSTEMS

摘要

In a graphics processing pipeline 1, a primitive depth sorting stage 9 is arranged prior to the rasterisation stage 3 and rendering stage 6. The primitive depth sorting stage 9 operates to sort successive sub-sets of primitives in a stream of primitives 2 received by the graphics processing pipeline 1 based on their depth values. The so-sorted primitives are then output from the primitive depth sorting stage 9 in their sorted depth order to the rasteriser 3. This makes the depth test stages 4, 13 of the graphics processing pipeline 1 more efficient in their hidden surface removal operations, because the primitives entering the rasteriser 3 will be in depth order.

主权项

1. A method of operating a graphics processing pipeline that includes a plurality of processing stages including a rasteriser that rasterises input primitives to generate graphics fragments to be processed, each graphics fragment having one or more sampling points associated with it, and a renderer that processes fragments generated by the rasteriser to generate output fragment data, the method comprising:
when the graphics processing pipeline is processing a set of graphics primitives, depth sorting successive sub-sets of the primitives in the set of graphics primitives prior to the rasteriser generating graphics fragments for processing the primitives.