Texture mapping apparatus and texel transfer method

摘要

An image rendering apparatus (100) is provided to reduce the amount of data communicated between a shader and a texture unit (40). The texture unit (40) performs a texture mapping operation for mapping a texture to an object in a three-dimensional space. An input unit (44) receives a single texture address parameter from the shader unit (20). A coordinate generation unit (54) generates a plurality of texel coordinates based on the texture address parameter. A retrieval unit (56) retrieves a plurality of texel values corresponding respectively to the plurality of generated texel coordinates in a texture cache (50) or in an external texture buffer. An output unit (46) outputs the retrieved texel values to the shader unit (20) in a batch. Since a plurality of texel values are read from a single texture address parameter input, the bandwidth for communications from the shader to the texture unit (40) may be saved.