ARCHITECTURE AND APPARATUS FOR IMAGE GENERATION

摘要

A system for image generation comprising a plurality of renderers (10), each having a geometry processor (100) and a rasterizer (120) that operate in parallel to compute pixel values for a set of primitive objects that comprise the image to be rendered. The geometry processor transforms graphics primitive objects from their native object coordinates to screen coordinates. The rasterizer consists of an array of enhanced memory devices (150) having a processor (151) and memory (152) for each pixel in a region of a screen. The processors (151) and their associated memories (152) operate in SIMD fashion on screen space primitive descriptions to compute and store pixel values for an entire such region. The enhanced memory devices further comprise compositors (154) for combining their pixel values, for example, based on a visibility test, with those from a corresponding memory device of another rasterizer.