Anthony C. Barkans

High speed high quality antialiased vector generation

A vector generation method is described in which a high quality image rendering scheme is coupled with a high speed scan-conversion algorithm.The rendering scheme consists of two parts. First a prefiltering method is used to antialias the vectors. Second a compositing technique is used to compose the vectors into the frame-buffer.The scan-conversion algorithm presented allows a single vector to be scan-converted by a either by a single processor or a set of processors running in parallel. When using parallel processors, antialiased vectors may be scan-converted and written to a frame store at the same high speed as aliased vectors. The VLSI technology used to implement this algorithm is capable of drawing over two million high quality antialiased vectors per second.

Color recovery: true-color 8-bit interactive graphics

For many years, the only practical way to display high-quality true-color images was on a computer having a graphics subsystem with at least 24 color planes. The high cost of color graphics devices with 24 planes led many users to choose 8-, 12-, or 16-plane systems. Unfortunately, using a system with fewer color planes sacrifices some color capabilities to save money. The paper discusses an innovation called color recovery that provides a method for displaying millions of colors within the cost constraints of an eight-plane system. One of the primary design goals for color recovery was to supply the additional color capabilities without giving up interactive performance. Another goal was to be able to work with all types of applications running in a windowed environment. An implementation of color recovery described in this article meets these goals.

Hardware-assisted polygon antialiasing

The use of two sampling methods, the precise point-sampling algorithm and the extended Bresenham algorithm (EBA), for rendering hardware is discussed, showing where the two methods converge and diverge. Two antialiasing techniques are then presented: an oversampling method and a stochastic method. Practical application of both is described. The use of filtering and sophisticated features with these methods is considered. Hardware support for antialiasing of polygons is discussed.<<ETX>>

Color recovery: millions of colors from an 8-bit graphics device

A method to produce true color images from a typical low cost 8-bit frame buffer is discussed. This method, called Color Recovery, is a two part process. The first part of the process is to sample true color data generated by an application in order to reduce 24-bit color to 8 bits for storage in the frame buffer. The second part of the process is to use specialized digital signal processing logic to reconstruct the true color image from the 8-bit frame buffer. This part of the process is preformed as the data is being scanned from the frame buffer to the display.