Image rendering process and apparatus

Assignee: PEERLESS GROUP

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Filing: 1991-08-02

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Granted: —

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Expires: 2011-08-02

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Abstract

Abstract An apparatus for creating a page image which may include complex graphics information for display on a continuous synchronous raster output device by generating bands of graphics information which use an amount of memory which is less than the amount which would be needed to store a complete page image, said apparatus comprising: a) means for receiving and interpretting commands in a page description language which define the page image to be output; b) means for generating a set of graphics orders from the interpretted page description language commands such that: i) said graphics orders can be processed into bands of bitmap images which can delivered to the output device at a speed required by the output device; and ii) while the graphics information in a first one of said bands is being output by said output device, the bitmap images for a second one of said bands is being generated; c) means for generating said bands of bitmap images from said graphics orders; d) means for outputting said bands of bitmap images to said output device.

Inventors

👤 Stephen R. Butterfield
👤 Donald E. Phillips
👤 Barbara B. Renshaw
👤 Steven K. Nelson
👤 Robert F. Hossley

Bibliographic Details

Application Number —

Jurisdiction EP

Data Source google_patents

Last Synchronized 2026-11-01 12:22

CPC Classifications

G; G06; G06K; G06K15/00; G06K15/02; G06K15/18; G06K15/1848; G06K15/1849; G06K15/1851; G06K2215/00; G06K2215/0002; G06K2215/0005; G06K2215/0014; G06K2215/0062; G06K2215/0065

Claims Analysis

Total Claims: 4

Claim 1

Independent Claim 177 words

An apparatus for creating a page image which may include complex graphics information for display on a continuous synchronous raster output device by generating bands of graphics information which use an amount of memory which is less than the amount which would be needed to store a complete page image, said apparatus comprising: a) means for receiving and interpretting commands in a page description language which define the page image to be output; b) means for generating a set of graphics orders from the interpretted page description language commands such that: i) said graphics orders can be processed into bands of bitmap images which can delivered to the output device at a speed required by the output device; and ii) while the graphics information in a first one of said bands is being output by said output device, the bitmap images for a second one of said bands is being generated; c) means for generating said bands of bitmap images from said graphics orders; d) means for outputting said bands of bitmap images to said output device.

Claim 2

Dependent Claim 149 words

The apparatus defined by Claim 1 wherein said graphics orders generation means comprises: a) graphics interface subsystem means for receiving said interpretted page description language commands and passing said received commands to at least one of a memory manager means, an immediate blit processor means and an order construction means; b) said memory manager means for allocating and deallocating blocks of a memory in response to calls from said graphics interface subsystem means, said order construction means and an order compaction means; c) said immediate blit processor means for drawing pixels in a user memory based upon pixel drawing commands passed by said graphics interface subsystem means; d) said order construction means for building stored orders based upon blit arguments passed by said graphics interface subsystem means; e) said order compaction means for combining multiple orders operating on the same destination pixel groups built by said order construction means.

Claim 3

Dependent Claim 61 words

The apparatus defined by Claim 2 wherein said band generation means comprises a realtime blit processor means for traversing said stored orders once for each band to be output and converting the stored orders into bitmap images corresponding to sections of said page image to be output and storing said bitmap images for each said band into a corresponding band buffer.

Claim 4

Dependent Claim 93 words

The apparatus defined by Claim 1 wherein said band outputting means comprises: a) output interface means for receiving completed bands of bitmap images from said realtime blit processor means and passing said bands to an output buffer means based upon signals received from said output buffer means and an output interrupt handler means; b) said output interrupt handler means for retreiving a band containing said bitmap images from a queue and passing said band to said output buffer means; c) said output buffer means for sending said bitmap images to said output device.

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