| 摘要 |
The geometric processing of an ordered sequence of graphics commands is distributed over a set of processors by the following steps. The sequence of graphics commands is partitioned into an ordered set of N subsequences S0 . . . SN-1, and an ordered set of N state vectors V0 . . . VN-1 is associated with said ordered set of subsequences S0 . . . SN-1. A first phase of processing is performed on the set of processors whereby, for each given subsequence Sj in the set of subsequences S0 . . . SN-2, state vector Vj+1 is updated to represent state as if the graphics commands in subsequence Sj had been executed in sequential order. A second phase of the processing is performed whereby the components of each given state vector Vk in the set of state vectors V1 . . . VN-1 generated in the first phase is merged with corresponding components in the preceding state vectors V0 . . . Vk-1 such that the state vector Vk represents state as if the graphics commands in subsequences S0 . . . Sk-1 had been executed in sequential order. Finally, a third phase of processing is performed on the set of processors whereby, for each subsequence Sm in the set of subsequences S1 . . . SN-1, geometry operations for subsequence Sm are performed using the state vector Vm generated in the second phase. In addition, in the third phase, geometry operations for subsequence S0 are performed using the state vector V0. Advantageously, the present invention provides a mechanism that allows a large number of processors to work in parallel on the geometry operations of the three-dimensional rendering pipeline. Moreover, this high degree of parallelism is achieved with very little synchronization (one processor waiting from another) required, which results in increased performance over prior art graphics processing techniques.
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