Nicholas E Carter

US Patent:

7928989, Apr 19, 2011

Filed:

Dec 12, 2006

Appl. No.:

11/609763

Inventors:

Patrick R. Brown - Raleigh NC, US
Eric S. Werness - San Jose CA, US
Barthold B. Lichtenbelt - Fort Collins CO, US
Nicholas B. Carter - Seattle WA, US

Assignee:

NVIDIA Corporation - Santa Clara CA

International Classification:

G06F 12/02
G06F 15/00
G06T 1/00
G06T 1/20

US Classification:

345543, 345501, 345506

Abstract:

One embodiment of the invention is a method for storing transformed vertex attributes that includes the steps of allocating memory space for a transform feedback buffer, selecting one or more transformed vertex attributes to store in the transform feedback buffer independently of any shader programs executing on any processing units in the graphics rendering pipeline, configuring the transform feedback buffer to store the one or more transformed vertex attributes, and initiating a processing mode wherein vertex data is processed in the graphics rendering pipeline to produce the transformed vertices, the attributes of which are then written to the transform feedback buffer. One advantage is that the transform feedback buffer can be used to store and access transformed vertices, without having to convert the vertex data to a pixel format, store the pixels in a frame buffer, and then convert the pixels back to a vertex format.