JP3538248B2 - Image composition apparatus and image composition method - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an image synthesizing apparatus and an image synthesizing method for synthesizing a view field image from an arbitrary viewpoint in a virtual three-dimensional space, and in particular, an image synthesizing apparatus capable of synthesizing images by a texture mapping method. And an image composition method.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, various types of image synthesizing apparatuses used for, for example, three-dimensional games or flight simulators for airplanes and various vehicles are known. In such an image composition device, image information related to the three-dimensional object 300 shown in FIG. 15 is stored in the device in advance. Here, the three-dimensional object 300 represents a landscape or the like that the player 302 can see through the screen 306. Then, a three-dimensional object 300 representing this landscape etc.
The pseudo three-dimensional image 308 is displayed on the screen 306 by performing perspective projection conversion on the image information. In this device, the player 302
When operations such as rotation and translation are performed using the operation panel 304,
A predetermined three-dimensional calculation process is performed based on the operation signal. Specifically, first, the player 302 receives an operation signal.
A calculation process is performed to determine how the viewpoint position, the line-of-sight direction, or the position, direction, etc. of the moving body on which the player 302 is boarding changes. Next, a calculation process is performed to determine how the image of the three-dimensional object 300 looks on the screen 306 in accordance with changes in the viewpoint position, line-of-sight direction, and the like. The above arithmetic processing is performed in real time following the operation of the player 302. As a result, the player 302 can view changes in the viewpoint, the direction of the line of sight, or changes in the scenery accompanying the change in the position and direction of the moving body on which the player 302 is moving in real time as a pseudo tertiary image. It will be possible to experience a simulated three-dimensional space.

[0003]

In such an image synthesizing apparatus, a technique called texture mapping is used in order to make a displayed image high quality.
In this texture mapping method, a texture is mapped to polygons constituting a display object, thereby obtaining a realistic display image.

In order to further improve the image quality in this texture mapping method, various types of texture information with different patterns may be prepared as texture information to be mapped to polygons. However, in this texture mapping method, a texture information storage unit for storing texture information is required, and if many types of texture information are prepared, the storage capacity of the texture information storage unit becomes enormous. In particular, in many cases, this texture information storage unit is composed of a ROM or the like.
Preparing a large-capacity ROM is very disadvantageous in terms of circuit scale and cost.

In addition, when a display object is shaded by, for example, a technique called Gouraud shading, the number of light sources set for speeding up the processing is limited, so that a richly expressed display image is obtained. There was also a problem that they could not.

The present invention has been made in view of the above-described conventional problems. The object of the present invention is to provide a rich representation of a display image obtained while using a texture information storage unit having a small storage capacity. It is intended to provide an image composition apparatus and an image composition method capable of improving display quality.

Another object of the present invention is to provide an image synthesizing apparatus and an image synthesizing method capable of obtaining a richly expressed display image without impeding the speeding up of processing.

[0008]

In order to achieve the above object, the present invention is an image synthesizing apparatus for synthesizing a visual field image from an arbitrary viewpoint in a virtual three-dimensional space, comprising: Image information adding means for providing image information including at least vertex luminance information and vertex texture coordinates for each vertex of the constituting polygon, and luminance information of each pixel in the polygon based on the vertex luminance information included in the image information And a drawing processing means for obtaining a texture coordinate of each pixel in the polygon based on the vertex texture coordinates included in the image information, and an address specified by the texture coordinates for information on the texture to be mapped to the polygon Texture information storage means stored at a position, and the image information adding means includes a plurality of polygons The same vertex texture coordinates are given to map the same texture to the polygon, and the luminance information of the pixels in the polygon is different between the polygons to which the same texture is mapped. It includes means for making the vertex luminance information different.

The present invention also relates to an image composition method for compositing a view image from an arbitrary viewpoint in a virtual three-dimensional space, comprising at least vertex luminance information for each vertex of a polygon constituting a display object, A first step of providing image information including vertex texture coordinates; and determining luminance information of each pixel in the polygon based on the vertex luminance information included in the image information; and the vertex texture coordinates included in the image information A second step of determining the texture coordinates of each pixel in the polygon based on
A third step of reading out information on the texture to be mapped to the polygon based on the texture coordinates obtained in the second step, and in the first step, a plurality of polygons constituting the display object The vertex brightness given to each polygon in order to give the same vertex texture coordinates to map the same texture and to make the brightness information of the pixels in the polygon different between the polygons to which the same texture is mapped It is characterized by different information.

According to the present invention, the luminance information and texture coordinates of the pixels in the polygon are obtained based on the given vertex luminance information and vertex texture coordinates. And
Texture information is read based on the obtained texture coordinates, and texture mapping is realized. In this case, the same vertex texture coordinates are given to the plurality of polygons, and the same texture is mapped to the plurality of polygons. On the other hand, different vertex luminance information is given to each of the plurality of polygons, whereby the luminance information of the pixels in the polygon can be made different. As described above, a richly expressed display image can be obtained using a small number of types of texture information.

Further, in the above, includes an image information storage means for storing image information of a display containing material by a plurality of polygons, the image information adding means, advance the vertex brightness information on each vertex By storing image information of a display object constituted by a given polygon in the image information storage means, the vertex luminance information given to each polygon is made different.

According to the present invention, the image information of the display object can be stored so that the vertex luminance information given to the polygon is different for each polygon. As a result, the vertex luminance information given to each polygon can be made different. As a result,
A richly expressed display image can be obtained by using a small number of types of texture information.

The present invention includes any one of the above-described vertex luminance calculation means for obtaining vertex luminance information of polygons constituting the display object based on a predetermined illumination model,
The vertex luminance calculating means includes means for changing the vertex luminance information given to the polygon by the image information adding means so as to be shaded based on the illumination model.

According to the present invention, it is possible to obtain a richly expressed display image by changing the vertex luminance information to be given, and to perform shading based on a predetermined illumination model. Thereby, the obtained display image can be made more realistic.

Also, in the present invention, in the above , the vertex luminance calculating means calculates the vertex luminance information based on light from N (N is an integer of 1 or more) virtual light sources, and The image information adding means displays the partial display so that the partial display object in the virtual three-dimensional space is shaded by light from M (M is an integer equal to or greater than N) virtual light sources. The vertex luminance information is given to an object.

According to the present invention, even when the vertex luminance calculation means can only perform shading based on N light sources, shading based on M (N or more) light sources is applied to some display objects. Can be performed.

[0017]

【Example】

1. Description of the entire device FIG. 1 shows a block diagram of the present embodiment.

As shown in FIG. 1, in this embodiment, an operation unit 12 for a player to input an operation signal, a virtual 3D space operation unit 100 for performing an operation for setting a virtual 3D space by a predetermined game program, An image composition unit 200 that forms a pseudo 3D image at the viewpoint position of the player, and a display 10 that outputs the pseudo 3D image are included.

For example, when the present embodiment is applied to a future tank game, an analog lever or the like for maneuvering the future tank is connected to the operation section 12, and an operation signal is input thereby.

In the virtual three-dimensional space calculation unit 100, a plurality of display objects in the virtual three-dimensional space shown in FIG. 2, such as the earth 76 and 78, obstacles 80 and 82, the own future tank 20, the enemy future tank 22, and the like. A calculation is performed to set the position or position and direction. This calculation is performed based on an operation signal from the operation unit 12, map information set and stored in advance, and the like.

Then, the image composition unit 200 performs an operation for synthesizing a view image from an arbitrary viewpoint in the virtual three-dimensional space based on the calculation result from the virtual three-dimensional space calculation unit 100. The synthesized view image is output from the display 10.

In this embodiment, the image composition unit 200 includes an object image information storage unit 212, a drawing processing unit 229, and a texture information storage unit 242. Here, the object image information storage unit (image information storage means) 212.
Stores image information of an object representing a display object composed of a plurality of polygons. In addition, the drawing processing unit 229 obtains luminance information of each pixel in the polygon based on vertex luminance information given to each vertex of the polygon, and each pixel in the polygon based on vertex texture coordinates given to each vertex of the polygon. The texture coordinates of the pixel are obtained. Further, in the texture information storage unit 242, information on the texture to be mapped to the polygon is stored at the address position specified by the texture coordinates.

The drawing processing unit 229 performs drawing processing based on the image information stored in the object image information storage unit 212. Then, texture information is read from the texture information storage unit 242 based on the texture coordinates obtained by the drawing process. Based on the texture information and the luminance information obtained by the drawing processing unit 229,
The RGB information of each pixel is obtained and output to the display 10.

The image information adding means 120 gives image information including at least vertex luminance information and vertex texture coordinates to each vertex of a plurality of polygons. The image information adding unit 120 includes a virtual three-dimensional space calculation unit 100.
It may be built in or provided outside. When the image information adding means 120 is incorporated, for example, the object image information storage unit 212 is constituted by a RAM or the like, and the image information (vertex luminance information, vertex texture coordinates, etc.) is imaged after the device is reset or powered on. Information adding means 12
The data is transferred from 0 to the object image information storage unit 212.
It is also possible to perform processing such as changing the content of the image information or re-transferring the image information while performing the image composition processing. When the image information adding unit 120 is provided outside, for example, the object image information storage unit 212 is configured by a ROM or the like, and the image information (vertex luminance information, vertex texture coordinates, etc.) of the display object is stored in the image information adding unit 1.
20 is given in advance and stored in this ROM or the like. In this case, image information automatically generated using a program or the like may be given, or image information desired by the designer may be given. Further, the object image information storage unit 212
It is also possible to configure a part of these by ROM and a part by RAM. In this case, for example, image information that does not need to be changed during the game is stored in the ROM, and image information that needs to be changed is stored in the RAM.

Now, in a technique called Gouraud shading, vertex luminance information at each vertex of a polygon is obtained based on a predetermined illumination model and a normal vector given to each vertex of the polygon. An operation is performed to obtain luminance information of each pixel in the polygon by interpolating the vertex luminance information. By performing such an operation, it is possible to perform shading in consideration of the illumination model and to express “roundness” at the boundary surface between polygons. In this case, the calculation for obtaining the vertex luminance information is performed before the image rendering unit 2 performs the polygon drawing process.
It takes place within 00.

As described above, in the conventional image synthesizing apparatus, the vertex luminance information is obtained for the first time by executing the calculation based on the illumination model or the like. On the contrary,
In this embodiment, arbitrary vertex luminance information desired by the designer is given by the image information adding means 120, and the drawing processing unit 229 obtains luminance information of each pixel based on the given vertex luminance information. By adopting such a method, it is possible to obtain a richly expressed display image using a small number of types of texture information. Furthermore, after giving the vertex brightness information desired by the designer to each vertex of the polygon, the shading calculation based on the illumination model and the normal vector is performed by the image composition processing in the image composition device, and the vertex brightness given thereby It is also possible to change the information and apply shading to the polygon in consideration of the lighting model.

In this embodiment, luminance information in the range of 0.0 to 4.0 can be given by the image information adding means 120. When 0.0 luminance information is given, a “black” color can be obtained. When 4.0 is given, a “white” color can be obtained. When 1.0 is given, a standard luminance can be obtained. Can be under color.

For example, in FIG. 3A, the vertex A of the polygon
For example, luminance information of (1.0, 1.O, 1.0, 1.0) is given to .about.D. Then, as shown in FIG. 3G, the texture information (color information) stored in the texture information storage unit 242 is directly mapped to the polygon without changing the luminance. As shown in FIG. 3B, when the luminance information at point A is 4.0 and the luminance at point C is 0.0, a texture as shown in FIG. 3H can be mapped. In FIG. 3 (H), the area around point A is bright (white).
It becomes darker (black) as it approaches point C. In FIG. 3C, the luminance at points A and C is set to 0.
As a result, it is possible to map a texture in which the periphery of a line connecting points A and C becomes dark. In addition, FIG.
In (D), the luminance information of point A and point D is set to 4.0, point B,
The luminance information at point C is set to 0.0.
Textures that become darker from point D to point B and point C can be mapped. In FIG. 3E, all vertex luminance information is set to 0.0, and in FIG. 3F, all vertex luminance information is set to 4.0. As a result, FIG.
As shown in (K) and (L), a black texture and a white texture can be mapped.

As described above, according to this embodiment, using one type of texture information (FIG. 3G), FIG.
Multiple types of patterns as shown in (I), (J), (K), and (L) can be expressed.

FIG. 4A shows an example of a display image when Gouraud shading based on light from the light source 602 is applied to a display object (object) 600 composed of a plurality of polygons. Indicated. By performing such Gouraud shading, a display image in which the vicinity of the vertex A is brightly shaded is obtained. Such Gouraud shading calculation is performed in the image synthesizer. Since this type of image synthesizer must complete all the drawing processes within one field period (for example, 1/60 second), High speed is required. Therefore, Gouraud shading calculation must be performed at high speed.
On the other hand, Gouraud shading sets the light source and calculates the vertex luminance information of all the polygons in the virtual three-dimensional space based on the light from this light source. Cost. Therefore, in order to speed up the Gouraud shading calculation, it is necessary to reduce the number of light sources as much as possible. In this embodiment, the number of light sources is one. In such a system, shading based on light from two light sources cannot be performed. Therefore, in this embodiment, in FIG. 4B, luminance information is given to the vertex F so as to increase the luminance, and as a result, a display image as if shaded by light from two light sources is displayed. It has gained. If shading from a plurality of light sources is performed in this way by Gouraud shading, all the display objects are shaded, which hinders the speeding up of processing. On the other hand, according to the present embodiment, it is possible to apply shading with a plurality of light sources only to a display object desired by the designer, thereby speeding up the process and obtaining a high-quality display image. be able to.

Furthermore, according to this embodiment, the vertices A to H (H
4), it is possible to obtain various display images as shown in FIGS. 4C, 4D, and 4E. That is, FIG.
Various display images that appear to have a pattern different from the display image shown in FIG.

Further, according to the present embodiment, a highlight display that is difficult to express by Gouraud shading is provided.
It can be realized easily. The highlight display makes it possible to express, for example, reflected light in a window.

2. Description of Virtual Three-Dimensional Space Calculation Unit Next, an example of a specific configuration of the virtual three-dimensional space calculation unit 100 will be described.

As shown in FIG. 5, the virtual three-dimensional space calculation unit 100 includes a processing unit 102 and a virtual three-dimensional space setting unit 10.
4, movement information calculation unit 106, object information storage unit 1
08, which includes image information adding means 120.

Here, the processing unit 102 controls the entire apparatus. A predetermined game program is stored in a storage unit provided in the processing unit 102. The virtual three-dimensional space calculation unit 100 calculates a virtual three-dimensional space setting according to the game program and the operation signal from the operation unit 12.

In the movement information calculation unit 106, movement information of a moving body such as a future tank is calculated in accordance with an operation signal from the operation unit 12, an instruction from the processing unit 102, and the like.

The object information storage unit 108 has as many storage storage areas as the number of objects constituting the virtual three-dimensional space. In each area, position information / direction information of the objects and display objects displayed at these positions. Are stored (hereinafter, the stored position information / direction information and object number are referred to as object information). FIG. 6 shows an example of object information stored in the object information storage unit 108.

The object information stored in the object information storage unit 108 is stored in the virtual three-dimensional space setting unit 10.
4 is read. In this case, the object information storage unit 108 stores object information in a frame immediately before the frame. Then, the virtual three-dimensional space setting unit 104 obtains object information (position information and direction information) in the frame based on the read object information and the movement information calculated by the movement information calculation unit 106. .

In this way, the virtual three-dimensional space setting unit 1
In 04, the object information of all objects constituting the virtual three-dimensional space in the frame is set. Note that the map setting unit 110 selects and sets only a map necessary for display when a map divided in the virtual three-dimensional space is displayed.

3. Description of Image Supply Unit Next, an example of a specific configuration of the image supply unit 210 will be described.

As shown in FIG. 7, the image supply unit 210
An object image information storage unit 212, a processing unit 215, a coordinate conversion unit 218, a vertex luminance calculation unit 219, a clipping processing unit 220, a polygon data conversion unit 224, and a sorting processing unit 226 are included. The clipping processing unit 220 includes a perspective projection conversion unit 222. In the image supply unit 210, according to the setting information of the virtual three-dimensional space set by the virtual three-dimensional space calculation unit 100,
Various coordinate conversion processes and three-dimensional calculation processes are performed.

That is, first, as shown in FIG. 8, objects 300, 333 and 33 representing future tanks, maps and the like.
4 is converted from the local coordinate system to the world coordinate system (XW, YW, ZW). Next, these coordinate-converted image information is stored in the player 30.
Viewpoint coordinate system based on 2 viewpoints (Xv, Yv, Zv)
The process of converting the coordinates to is performed. These coordinate conversion processes are performed by the coordinate conversion unit 218. Thereafter, so-called clipping processing is performed by the clipping processing unit 222, and then perspective projection conversion processing to the screen coordinate system (XS, YS) is performed by the perspective projection conversion unit 222.
Next, conversion processing of the output polygon format is performed by the polygon data conversion unit 224. Finally, if necessary, sorting processing is performed by the sorting processing unit 226.
Is done.

In this embodiment, object information including position information, direction information, and object number is transferred from the virtual three-dimensional space calculation unit 100 to the processing unit 215. The object image information storage unit 2 uses the transferred object number as an address.
12, image information of the corresponding object is read out. In the object image information storage unit 212, image information of a display object is expressed and stored as a set (polyhedron) of a plurality of polygons. The processing unit 215 forms data in which frame data, object data, and polygon data are paired from the data read out by the data format forming unit 217, and sequentially transfers the data to the coordinate conversion unit 218 and subsequent units.

Here, the frame data includes data such as viewpoint information of the player 302 in the virtual three-dimensional space, viewing angle, light source vector, light source brightness, diffuse ambient light, and the like. The object data is data including object position information, rotation information, and other attached data. Polygon data is image information about polygons constituting an object, and is data constituted by polygon vertex coordinates, vertex texture coordinates, vertex luminance information, and other attached data. These data are converted into a data format as shown in FIGS. 9A and 9B by the data format forming unit 217. As shown in FIG. 9A, in this data format, the frame data is the head and the data of the object displayed in the frame is continuous. And with these object data at the top,
Polygon data constituting the object is continuous. Each of these polygon data is shown in FIG.
As shown in (B), a header, vertex luminance information given to each vertex of the polygon, vertex texture coordinates, and vertex coordinates are included.

In this embodiment, the vertex luminance information is included in the polygon data shown in FIG. 9B only when it is given in advance by the image information adding means 120.
Therefore, when not provided by the image information adding means 120, the vertex data is not included in the polygon data at the stage of output from the data format forming unit 217. In this case, the vertex luminance calculation unit 219 is used.
To obtain vertex luminance information for the polygon. In the vertex luminance calculation unit 219, the coordinate conversion unit 218
Normal vector (contributed to each vertex of polygon) transformed into world coordinate system by, data such as light source vector, light source brightness, diffuse ambient light, etc. included in frame data, and Lambert diffuse reflection model or specular reflection Based on an illumination model such as a model, a calculation for obtaining vertex luminance information of the polygon is performed. The obtained vertex luminance information is added to the polygon data in the format shown in FIG. 9B.

For example, when the vertex luminance information is calculated using the Lambert diffuse reflection model, the following is performed. That light intensity i, the optical specular (specular reflection light) component (p _s), generally following equation by ambient (environmental light) component (p _a) and Defuyuzu (diffuse reflected light) component (p _d) It is expressed as _{i = p a + p d ×} d + p s × s d in the above formula, but different models by way decided s are present, the Lambert diffuse reflection model, only ambient component and Defuyuzu component of light in determining the intensity of light Consider. Therefore, this model can be expressed as: i = p _a + p _d × coefficient of Defuyuzu components in d above formula d is the inner product N · L of the normal vector N and the light vector L is expressed by the following equation.

D = max (0, N · L) As described above, when the illumination model is used, vertex luminance information is obtained using the normal vector N, the light vector N, and the like. On the other hand, in this embodiment, for the polygons constituting a part of the display object, the vertex luminance information is not obtained by the illumination model, but the arbitrary vertex luminance information desired by the designer is used as the image information adding means. 120. Thereby, the brightness of each pixel in the polygon can be controlled regardless of the illumination model.
As shown in (L), various expressions are possible using one type of texture information.

Of course, it is possible to add a change process to the vertex luminance information given in this way using the illumination model as described above. Thereby, for example, it is possible to obtain a display image with rich expression such as being shaded by a plurality of light sources.

5. Description of Image Forming Unit Next, an example of a specific configuration of the image forming unit 228 will be described.

The image forming unit 228 obtains image information of each pixel in the polygon based on the image information of each vertex of the polygon given from the image supply unit 210, and outputs the image information to the display 10. As shown in Figure 10,
A drawing processing unit 229, a texture information storage unit 242, and a palette & mixer circuit 244 are included.

First, the texture mapping method and the Gouraud shading method will be briefly described.

FIG. 11 shows the concept of the texture mapping method.

For example, in the case of compositing an image in which each surface of an object 332 as shown in FIG. 11 is provided with, for example, a grid pattern or a striped pattern, the object is a polygon.
(1) to (80) (Polygons (41) to (80) are not shown)
The image processing is performed on all these polygons. The reason is that in the conventional image synthesizing apparatus, 1
This is because the color in one polygon can only be filled with one specified color. As a result, when a high-quality image with a complicated pattern or the like is synthesized, the number of polygons is greatly increased. Therefore, it is virtually impossible to synthesize such a high-quality image. It was possible.

In this embodiment, therefore, the object 33
The polygons A, B, and C constituting each surface are subjected to coordinate transformation such as rotation, translation, perspective projection transformation, and clipping of 2 and clipping.
(Specifically, for each vertex of each polygon), and the grid-like and striped patterns are handled as textures, and are processed separately from polygon processing. That is, as shown in FIG. 10, a texture information storage unit 242 is provided in the image forming unit 228, in which texture information to be mapped to each three-dimensional polygon, that is, an image such as a grid pattern or a striped pattern. Information is stored.

The address of the texture information storage unit 242 for designating the texture information is given as vertex texture coordinates VTX and VTY of each three-dimensional polygon. Specifically, as shown in FIG. 11, for each vertex of the polygon A, (VTX0, VTY0), (VTX1, VT
The vertex texture coordinates of (Y1), (VTX2, VTY2), (VTX3, VTY3) are set.

In the drawing processing unit 229 in the image forming unit 228, the texture coordinates TX, TY for all the dots in the polygon are obtained from the vertex texture coordinates VTX, VTY.
Is required. And the obtained texture coordinate T
The corresponding texture information is read from the texture information storage unit 242 by X and TY, and is output to the palette & mixer circuit 244. As a result, as shown in FIG.
It becomes possible to synthesize a dimensional object.
Next, the Gouraud shading method will be described.

In this embodiment, the object 332 is expressed as a block of polygons. Therefore, the continuity of luminance information at the boundary of each polygon becomes a problem. For example, when a sphere is expressed using a plurality of polygons, if all the dots in the polygon are set to the same brightness, each polygon is actually shown as “K” in FIG. There is a situation where the boundary is not expressed as "roundness". Therefore, in this embodiment, this is avoided by a technique called Gouraud shading. In this method, as in the texture mapping method described above, 3
The vertex luminance information VBRI0 to VBRI3 is given to each vertex of the three-dimensional polygon as shown in FIG.
8 when the image is finally displayed.
Luminance information for all dots in the three-dimensional polygon is obtained by interpolation from RI0 to VBRI3. This makes it possible to express “roundness” at the boundary as indicated by L in FIG. In addition, shading based on a predetermined illumination model is possible. FIGS. 13A to 13K visually show the flow of arithmetic processing performed in the image forming unit 228. In the image forming unit 228, image information at each pixel is obtained from the image information of the vertices of the polygons. In FIGS. 13A to 13K, a calculation process for obtaining the texture coordinates in the image information is visually shown. Has been.

The vertex luminance information is obtained by the same process as that for obtaining the texture coordinates.

The texture information to be mapped to the polygon is stored in the texture information storage unit 242.
In order to read out the texture information, texture coordinates TX and TY are required. 13 (F), (G),
In (H) and (I), arithmetic processing for obtaining perspective projection transformation texture coordinates TX ^* and TY ^* of pixels in a polygon is visually shown. In addition, FIGS. 13B, 13C,
In (D) and (E), the state of calculation processing for obtaining perspective projection transformation display coordinates X ^* and Y ^* , which are coordinates for displaying a texture, is visually shown. The above calculation is performed by the drawing processing unit 2.
29. Then, as shown in FIG. 13J, the calculated perspective projection transformation texture coordinates TX ^* , TY ^*
Is subjected to inverse perspective projection conversion to texture coordinates TX and TY, and by the texture coordinates TX and TY subjected to inverse perspective projection conversion,
Texture information is read from the texture information storage unit 242. Finally, as shown in FIG. 13 (K), image synthesis is realized by associating the read texture information with the calculated coordinate positions of X ^* and Y ^* .

FIG. 14 shows a texture information storage unit 242.
An example of a texture storage plane constituted by is shown. The texture information storage unit 242 stores various types of texture information (color information and the like). Since the texture information storage unit 242 is normally composed of a ROM or the like, if the number of stored textures is increased, the memory becomes larger in capacity, which leads to an increase in circuit scale and cost. On the other hand, in the present embodiment, vertex luminance information is given to the polygons constituting the display object so that a desired pattern is expressed on the display object, so that various kinds of texture information can be used. Expression is possible. Thereby, the capacity of the texture information storage unit 242 can be reduced, and the cost can be reduced.

The palette & mixer circuit 244 generates RGB data for each pixel based on the luminance information obtained by the drawing processing unit 229, the texture information read from the texture information storage unit 242, and the like. R generated by the palette & mixer circuit 244
The GB data is output to the display 10, whereby a display image can be obtained.

It should be noted that the present invention is not limited to the above-described embodiments, and various modifications can be made within the scope of the gist of the present invention.

For example, the present invention can be applied not only to a commercial three-dimensional game but also to, for example, a home game device, a flight simulator, a driving simulator used in a school, and the like. Furthermore, the present invention can be applied to a large attraction type game apparatus and simulation apparatus in which a large number of players participate.

In the present invention, the arithmetic processing performed in the virtual three-dimensional space arithmetic means, the image synthesizing means, etc. may be performed using a dedicated image processing device, or a general-purpose microcomputer, DSP or the like is used. Then, it may be processed by software.

Further, the arithmetic processing performed by the virtual three-dimensional space arithmetic means, the image synthesizing means, etc. is not limited to the one described in the present embodiment, and the texture mapping method and the like are also as described above. Not limited.

In addition, the pseudo-3 synthesized image according to the present invention.
The dimensional image can naturally be displayed on a display called a head mounted display (HMD).

[0067]

According to the present invention, a richly expressed display image can be obtained by using a small number of types of texture information. As a result, the storage capacity of the texture information storage means for storing the texture information can be reduced, the cost can be reduced, the variety of display images obtained can be increased, and a high quality display image can be obtained. Can be obtained.

Further, according to the present invention, the texture information storage means having a small storage capacity can be obtained by storing the image information of the display object in the image information storage means so that the vertex luminance information given to the polygon differs for each polygon. Can be used to obtain a richly displayed image.

Further, according to the present invention, it is possible to obtain a more realistic display image that is shaded based on the illumination model.

Further, according to the present invention, it is possible to perform shading based on a large number of light sources on some display objects in the virtual three-dimensional space. As a result, it is possible to enrich the display image without impeding the speeding up of processing.

[0071]

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is an example of a block diagram of the present embodiment

FIG. 2 is a diagram for explaining a virtual three-dimensional space.

3 (A) to 3 (F) are diagrams showing an example in which various luminance information is given to each vertex of a polygon.
(G)-(L) are figures which show the example of the display image obtained at this time.

4A to 4E are diagrams showing various display images obtained from this embodiment. FIG.

FIG. 5 is an example of a block diagram illustrating an example of a detailed configuration of a virtual three-dimensional space calculation unit.

FIG. 6 is a diagram for explaining object information stored in an object information storage unit;

FIG. 7 is a block diagram illustrating an example of a detailed configuration of an image supply unit.

FIG. 8 is a diagram for explaining a three-dimensional calculation process in the embodiment.

FIGS. 9A and 9B are diagrams illustrating an example of a data format formed by a data format forming unit.

FIG. 10 is a block diagram illustrating an example of a detailed configuration of an image forming unit.

FIG. 11 is a diagram for explaining a texture mapping method;

FIG. 12 is a diagram for explaining a Gouraud shading method;

FIGS. 13A to 13K are diagrams visually showing a texture mapping method in the present embodiment.

FIG. 14 is a diagram illustrating an example of a texture storage plane configured by a texture information storage unit.

FIG. 15 is a schematic explanatory diagram for explaining the concept of a three-dimensional image composition device.

[Explanation of symbols]

10 display 12 Operation unit 100 Virtual three-dimensional space calculation unit 102 processing unit 104 Virtual 3D space setting unit 106 Movement information calculation unit 108 Object information storage unit 110 Map setting section 120 Image information adding means 200 Image composition part 210 Image supply unit 212 Object image information storage unit 215 processing section 217 Data format forming part 218 Coordinate converter 219 Vertex luminance calculation unit 220 Clipping processing unit 222 Perspective projection converter 224 Polygon data converter 228 Image forming unit 226 Sorting processor 229 Drawing processing unit 242 Texture information storage unit 244 Pallet & mixer circuit

Continued from front page (58) Fields surveyed (Int.Cl. ⁷ , DB name) G06T 15/00-15/60 A63F 13/00

Claims (6)

(57) [Claims] 1. An image synthesizing apparatus for synthesizing a field-of-view image from an arbitrary viewpoint in a virtual three-dimensional space, comprising at least vertex luminance information and vertex texture coordinates for each vertex of a polygon constituting a display object. Image information adding means for providing image information including; obtaining luminance information of each pixel in the polygon based on the vertex luminance information included in the image information; and polygon based on the vertex texture coordinates included in the image information a drawing processing means for obtaining the texture coordinates of each pixel of the inner, texture information to be mapped to the polygon, and texture information storing means stored in the address location specified by the texture coordinates, based on a predetermined illumination model Polygons that make up the display
Vertex luminance calculation means for obtaining the vertex luminance information of the image , and the image information adding means provides the same vertex texture coordinates for mapping the same texture to a plurality of polygons, and the same texture is The vertex luminance information given to each polygon in order to make the luminance information of the pixels in the polygons different among the polygons to be mapped , and the vertex luminance calculation means is set by the image information adding means.
The vertex luminance information given to the LIGON
An image synthesizing apparatus that is modified so as to be shaded based on a model . 2. The image information storage means according to claim 1, further comprising image information storage means for storing image information of a display object composed of a plurality of polygons, wherein the image information adding means is provided with the vertex luminance information in advance for each vertex. An image synthesizing apparatus characterized in that the vertex luminance information given to each polygon is made different by storing image information of a display object composed of polygons in the image information storage means. 3. The vertex luminance calculation means according to claim 1 , wherein the vertex luminance calculation means performs an operation for obtaining the vertex luminance information based on light from N (N is an integer of 1 or more) virtual light sources, and The image information adding means displays the partial display so that the partial display object in the virtual three-dimensional space is shaded by light from M (M is an integer equal to or greater than N) virtual light sources. An image synthesizing apparatus that gives the vertex luminance information to an object. 4. An image composition method for compositing a view image from an arbitrary viewpoint in a virtual three-dimensional space, wherein at least vertex luminance information and vertex texture coordinates are obtained for each vertex of a polygon constituting a display object. A first step of providing image information including: obtaining luminance information of each pixel in the polygon based on the vertex luminance information included in the image information; and a polygon based on the vertex texture coordinates included in the image information Second to find the texture coordinates of each pixel in
Polygons constituting the steps, a third step of reading information of the texture to be mapped to the polygon based on the texture coordinates determined by the second step, a display object based on the predetermined illumination model
A fourth step of obtaining vertex luminance information of the same, and in the first step, giving the same vertex texture coordinates to map the same texture to a plurality of polygons constituting the display object, thereby varies the vertex brightness information given to each polygon in order to vary the luminance information of the pixels in the polygon between polygons the same texture is mapped, in the fourth step, in the first step Po
The vertex luminance information given to the LIGON
A method of synthesizing an image, wherein the image is modified so that shading based on the model is applied . 5. A method according to claim 4, wherein in said first step, each vertex is preliminarily assigned to said vertex.
Display object composed of polygons given brightness information
Image information of the display object consisting of multiple polygons
Stored in image information storage means for storing image information.
And the vertex luminance information given to each polygon is different.
An image composition method characterized in that 6. The method according to claim 4, wherein in the fourth step, N (N is an integer of 1 or more).
The vertex luminance information is obtained based on light from a virtual light source.
In the first step, a virtual three-dimensional
There are M display objects in the space (M is an integer greater than or equal to N).
To be shaded by light from a number of virtual light sources
The vertex luminance information is given to the partial display object.
An image composition method characterized by the above.