(12) United States Patent (10) Patent No.: US 7,133,041 B2 Kaufman Et Al
US007133041B2 (12) United States Patent (10) Patent No.: US 7,133,041 B2 Kaufman et al. (45) Date of Patent: Nov. 7, 2006 (54) APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR VOLUME (56) References Cited PROCESSING AND RENDERING U.S. PATENT DOCUMENTS (75) Inventors: Arie E. Kaufman, Plainview, NY (US); 4,314,351 A 2f1982 Postel et al. Ingmar Bitter, Lake Grove, NY (US); 4,371,933 A 2, 1983 Bresenham et al. Frank Dachille, Amityville, NY (US); Kevin Kreeger, East Setauket, NY (Continued) (US); Baoquan Chen, Maple Grove, FOREIGN PATENT DOCUMENTS MN (US) EP O 216 156 A2 4f1987 (73) Assignee: The Research Foundation of State University of New York, Albany, NY (Continued) (US) OTHER PUBLICATIONS (*) Notice: Subject to any disclaimer, the term of this Knittel, G., TriangleCaster: extensions to 3D-texturing units for patent is extended or adjusted under 35 accelerated volume rendering, 1999, Proceedings of the ACM U.S.C. 154(b) by 742 days. SIGGRAPH/EUROGRAPHICS workshop on Graphics hardware, pp. 25-34.* (21) Appl. No.: 10/204,685 (Continued) PCT Fed: Feb. 26, 2001 (22) Primary Examiner Ulka Chauhan (86) PCT No.: PCT/USO1 (O6345 Assistant Examiner Said Broome (74) Attorney, Agent, or Firm Hoffmann & Baron, LLP S 371 (c)(1), (2), (4) Date: Jan. 9, 2003 (57) ABSTRACT (87) PCT Pub. No.: WOO1A63561 An apparatus and method for real-time Volume processing and universal three-dimensional rendering. The apparatus PCT Pub. Date: Aug. 30, 2001 includes a plurality of three-dimensional (3D) memory units; at least one pixel bus for providing global horizontal (65) Prior Publication Data communication; a plurality of rendering pipelines; at least one geometry bus; and a control unit.
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