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United States Patent
Methods and apparatus for rendering images using 3D warping techniques

Patent Number: 6,756,993
Date of Patent: 29 June 2004
Inventors: Popescu; Voicu (West Lafayette, IN); Lastra; Anselmo (Chapel Hill, NC); Eyles; John (Chapel Hill, NC)
Assignee: The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, N.C.
Appl. No.: 052189
Filed: January 17, 2002
Int. Cl.: G09G 5/00
U.S. Cl.: 345/646; 345/422; 345/423; 345/581; 345/609; 345/647; 382/173; 382/300
35 Claims

Abstract
Methods and apparatus for rendering images are presented. The method includes the step of segmenting at least one reference image in a reference image space into a plurality of tiles, each tile defined by a corresponding set of image samples. The connectivity of each of the samples is determined based on the relative curvature of a surface of the corresponding tile at the sample coordinates. Color and depth information between adjacent, connected samples is bi-linearly interpolated to form a corresponding set of sub-samples. The set of sub-samples are warped from the reference image space to a destination image space. A final pixel color for each of a plurality of groups of sub-samples in the destination image space is computed as a weighted average of the color information of the sub-samples for each respective group. The final pixel colors are combined to render a final image in the destination image space from the at least one reference image.