AN IMPROVED METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR PER PIXEL MIP MAPPING AND TRILINEAR FILTERING

摘要

The number of computations performed in rendering graphics is reduced by computing certain terms only at the beginning of each scanline (302). A scanline gradient is calculated once at the beginning of each scanline (302) for each of two texture values with respect of the x-coordinate of the scanline (302). Thereafter, a pixel gradient is calculated for each pixel (304) of the scanline (302) with respect to the y-coordinate of the scanline (302). The scanline gradients and pixel gradients are used to find a maximum Rho constant, which is used to select a texture map for rendering the corresponding pixel (304).