Julian Fong

US Patent:

8416260, Apr 9, 2013

Filed:

May 22, 2008

Appl. No.:

12/125346

Inventors:

Loren Carpenter - Nicasio CA, US
Dana Batali - Bainbridge Island WA, US
Julian Fong - Oakland CA, US

Assignee:

Pixar - Emeryville CA

International Classification:

G09G 5/00

US Classification:

345619, 345423, 345424

Abstract:

Small objects causing aliasing are enlarged so that they are likely to be sampled by image sampling points. The opacity of the enlarged object is reduced in proportion to the enlargement. To efficiently render partially transparent objects, such as enlarged objects, objects are sampled using sigma buffer samples instead of image sample points. For each sigma buffer sample, a corresponding portion of the object is set to either completely transparent or completely opaque. The proportion of transparent to opaque portions of the object matches or approximates the partial transparency of the object as a whole. The completely opaque portions of one or more objects are sampled with the corresponding sigma buffer samples. Aggregate values of the sigma buffer samples are determined and can be combined with the attribute values of other objects sampled with image sampling points associated with the same region as the set of sigma buffer samples.