JPH03268186A - Graphic processor - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To attain rapid and accurate processing by dividing the data of an environmental object into plural detailed stages, storing respective detailed stages, selecting one of the detailed stages of the data of the object in accordance with the coordinates of a reference point of the object, and displaying the image of the object whose detailedness is different in accordance with a distance from a visual point. CONSTITUTION:The plural divided detailed stages of data indicating the environmental object are stored in an environmental data storing means 2 and a geometric conversion processor 4 executes processing for selecting one of the detailed stages of the data indicating the environmental object which are stored in the means 2 in accordance with the coordinates of the reference point of the object. Consequently, the image of the environmental object can be displayed with respectively different detailedness in accordance with the distance from a visual point and the combination of a three-dimensional object consisting of a remarked object and the environmental object can be displayed on a plane.

Description

[Detailed Description of the Invention] [Summary]: Regarding a graphics processing device that performs processing for displaying dimensional objects on a plane, the present invention provides a graphics processing device that can reduce the load on a host and realize high-speed and accurate processing. The object data storage means has object data storage means for storing data of the object of interest, and environmental data storage means for storing data of environmental objects for the object of interest, and a geometric transformation processor converts the object data into object data under the control of the host. A graphics processing device that continuously performs graphics processing such as coordinate transformation, brightness calculation, and clipping to display a set of three-dimensional objects consisting of the object of interest and environmental objects on a flat surface on a display means. In the environmental data storage means, the data of the environmental object is divided into a plurality of levels of fineness and stored, and the geometric transformation processor stores the data of the environmental object in the environmental data storage means by dividing the fineness level of the data of the environmental object into a reference of the object. It is constructed by performing selection processing according to point coordinates and displaying images of environmental objects with different fineness depending on the distance from the viewpoint.

[Industrial Field of Application] The present invention relates to a processing device that performs processing for displaying a three-dimensional object on a flat surface, and particularly relates to a graphics processing device that can generate data to be displayed at high speed. .

=Dimensional display devices are used in fields such as design, where realism and aesthetics are important, and fields where high speed is important, such as car and aircraft flight simulators and game consoles. However, the present invention provides a means for realizing high-speed three-dimensional display in the latter field of application.

Particularly in fields of application such as flight simulators, most of the display data is the environment in front of a car or aircraft, such as buildings, roads, signs, etc., and it is necessary to process these efficiently. For this reason, a method is used in which data is divided into multiple levels of fineness depending on the distance between the viewpoint and objects in the environment, and coarse data is used for objects located behind.

A graphics processing device for performing such processing is required to be capable of reducing the load on the host and realizing high-speed and accurate processing.

[Conventional technology]

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing a conventional graphics processing device.

In FIG. 5, 11 is a host (computer), 12
is a segment buffer, and 13 is a geometric transformation processor. 14 to 17 are storage means for object data to be processed; 14 is an object data storage section; 15 is a low-resolution environmental data storage section; 16 is a medium-resolution environmental data storage section; and 17 is a high-resolution environmental data storage section. be. Further, 18 is a drawing section, 19 is a frame buffer, and 20 is a display section.

Based on the user's input operation, the host 11 generates an address string for the storage means 14 to 17 for the coordinate transformation matrix, light source information, and object data to be subjected to clipping boundary value processing, and outputs it to the geometric transformation processor 13. do.

The object data storage unit 14 includes oncoming vehicles.

Polygon data that constructs objects such as preceding vehicles is stored. The N-boundary data storage units 15 to 17 store environmental data such as buildings, mountains, roads, signs, etc., and data constructed using rough polygons for the same object are stored in the low-resolution environmental data storage unit 15. Data constructed using fine polygons is stored in the high-resolution environmental data storage section 17, and data with intermediate roughness is stored in the medium-resolution environmental data storage section 16.

The geometric transformation processor 13 inputs the data of each data storage section 14 to 17 according to the address string given from the host 11, and performs coordinate transformation and brightness calculation using parameters given from the host 11.

Performs processing such as clipping. The drawing unit 18 calculates the brightness of each pixel inside the polygon using the brightness value of each vertex of the polygon calculated by the geometric transformation processor 13, and writes the obtained image data to the frame buffer 19. At this time, for example, instead of displaying only images with a small distance in the Z-axis direction,
Hidden surfaces are removed using a sorting method, etc. The display unit 20 displays the content written in the frame buffer 19 on the display.

At this time, the host 1] determines the viewing range and the resolution of the environmental data within the viewing range as follows regarding the environmental data.

6(a), 6(b) illustrate the process of determining the visual field range, where (a) shows the positional relationship between the viewpoint, the screen displaying the image, and the horizon, and 31 indicates the viewpoint. , 32 is a screen, and 33 is a ground plane. Also, (b
) indicates the viewing range on the ground plane 33 corresponding to the screen 32.

The host 11 has a viewpoint 31 as shown in FIG. 6(a).
From the positional relationship between the screen 32 on which the image is displayed and the ground plane 33, the viewing range ABCD on the ground plane 33 as shown in FIG. 6(b) is determined.

Further, FIG. 7 explains the resolution determination process, and the resolution is gradually increased as the distance from the viewpoint becomes smaller within the visual field ABCD determined as shown in FIG. 6(b). , determine the respective resolution regions. In FIG. 7, the low resolution area 41. Medium resolution region 42. A high resolution area 43 is shown.

After determining the area of each resolution, the host 11 refers to the environmental data address map in the segment buffer 12 that indicates the address of each environmental data, and transfers the address string to the geometric transformation processor 13.

The environmental data address map is prepared for each resolution, and the address of the environmental data of the environmental data storage units 15 to 17 is stored for each block obtained by dividing the size of the horizon into a plurality of blocks. .

[Problem to be solved by the invention]

When determining the resolution of environmental data within the field of view, the host 11 needs to find the distance between the viewpoint and the vertices AB, C, and D of the field of view, and also calculates the distance between the viewpoint and the vertices AB, C, and D of the field of view. For example, as shown in FIG. 7, depending on the darkness value of the distance from
, side BC.

It must be divided into sides C'C. Such processing requires a large number of square root calculations and divisions, which places a heavy load on the host 11, which may reduce the overall processing efficiency.

Also, since accurate distance information cannot be obtained for objects that have height, coarse resolution data is applied to objects that are close to the viewpoint, such as the rooftop ring of a building viewed from above. there is a possibility.

The present invention aims to solve the problems of the prior art, and is capable of reducing the load on the host and achieving high-speed and accurate processing in graphics processing for displaying three-dimensional objects. The purpose is to provide a graphics processing device.

[Means to solve the problem]

As shown in FIG. 1, the basic configuration of the present invention is such that a geometric transformation processor 4 converts data representing an object of interest stored in an object data storage means 1 and environmental data storage means 2 under the control of a boss 3. Coordinate transformation and brightness calculations are performed on data representing environmental objects that form the environment for the object of interest stored in .

In a graphics processing device that performs graphics processing such as clipping to continuously display a set of three-dimensional objects consisting of an object of interest and an environmental object on a flat surface on a display means 5, an environmental data storage means is provided. 2,
The data representing the environmental object is stored in a plurality of levels of fineness, and the geometric transformation processor 4 changes the level of fineness of the data representing the environmental object in the environmental data storage means 2 according to the reference point coordinates of the object. By performing selection processing, images of environmental objects are displayed at different levels of detail depending on the distance from the viewpoint, and a three-dimensional object collection consisting of the object of interest and environmental objects is displayed on a plane. This is what I did.

Furthermore, the present invention provides that the Z-value determination section 6 is implemented by the geometric transformation processor 4.
After converting the reference point coordinates of the environmental object into coordinate values such that the line of sight direction and the Z-axis direction match, the Z-value determination unit 6
By comparing and determining the coordinate values of the conversion result and the distance from the viewpoint, data to be processed is selected from the environmental object data stored in the environmental data storage means 2.

[Operation] FIG. 2 is a diagram for explaining the present invention in detail, and shows the system configuration of the present invention in a block diagram. The same parts as in FIG. 5 are indicated by the same numbers, 21 is an environmental data storage section, and 22 is a Z value determination section.

Further, FIG. 3 is a diagram showing the data structure of environmental data, and shows data stored in the environmental data storage section 21 shown in FIG. 2.

In FIG. 2, when the host 11 determines the field of view range on the horizon as shown in FIG. do. At this time, the selection of environmental data based on distance is performed by the Z value determination unit 2 in the geometric transformation processor 13.
2. Therefore, since the host 11 does not select the resolution based on distance, the load on the host 11 is greatly reduced.

More specifically, the address string generated by the host 11 is the address AI in the data structure shown in FIG.
Address A2 is the first address in the environmental data storage unit 21 of a certain piece of environmental object data.

Now, the geometric transformation processor 13 uses this address to convert one of the environmental objects, for example, the environmental object 1 shown in FIG.
Referring to , visual field transformation, which is a part of coordinate transformation, is applied to the reference point coordinate value 1, and the reference point coordinate value 1 is transformed into a coordinate value such that the viewing direction coincides with the Z-axis direction. The reference point coordinate values are coordinate values representative of the environmental object, and for example, the center coordinates of the environmental object are set as the reference point coordinate values. The result of this conversion is Z
This is effective when performing hidden surface removal by sorting Z values in a device that does not have a buffer.

The geometric transformation processor 13 uses the Z value determination unit 22 to
By comparing and determining the Z coordinate of the reference point conversion result and the dark value of the distance from the viewpoint, address H1, address ML, address L, which are stored following reference point coordinate 1 in FIG. 3, are determined.
Select one of 1. address H1, address ML
The address L1 is a high-resolution polygon sequence that each constitutes an environmental object.

This is a pointer to a medium-resolution polygon string and a low-resolution polygon string.

In this way, the resolution is determined based on the Z value of the reference point coordinates after visual field conversion, and necessary polygon data is processed.

1 2 The polygon data of each resolution has the number of polygons to be processed at the beginning, and data of each vertex of the polygon, for example, three-dimensional coordinate values, are stored below.

The increase in the processing load of the geometric transformation processor 13 according to the present invention is limited to the selection of addresses based on Z values, and is extremely small compared to the processing of coordinate transformation of polygons, luminance calculation, and clipping.

〔Example〕

FIG. 4 shows one embodiment of the present invention.
The same parts as in the figure are indicated by the same numbers, 23 is a visual field conversion section, 24 is a brightness calculation section, 25 is a perspective conversion section, and 26 is a clipping section.

These are connected in series by a pipeline to constitute the geometric transformation processor 13 shown in FIG. 2G). Also, 27
28 is a Z sort section, and 28 is a dont expansion section.

In FIG. 4, the field of view conversion unit 23 receives the host 11 parameters, an environment data address string within the field of view, and an object data address string, and then converts parameters necessary for subsequent processing. The center coordinates and polygon data of the environmental object read from the environmental data storage unit 21 using the environmental data address are subjected to visual field transformation and output.

Furthermore, for the object data read from the object data storage section 14 using the object data address, the center coordinates and polygon data are subjected to visual field transformation and output. Note that since the field of view conversion allows it to be determined whether the polygon faces the front or the back with respect to the viewpoint, the back side is not output.

The brightness calculation unit 24 uses information regarding the light source among the parameters input from the previous stage to calculate and output the brightness value of the vertex of each polygon input from the previous stage.

The perspective conversion unit 25 converts the XY coordinate values of the vertices of each polygon input from the previous stage into XY coordinate values with a sense of perspective, using information regarding the focal length among the parameters input from the previous stage, and outputs the converted XY coordinate values. do. Perspective here means that things in the foreground appear larger and things in the back appear smaller when viewed from the viewpoint. Note that the center coordinates of the object data and environment data are output because they are necessary for Z sorting in the subsequent stage.

The clipping unit 26 uses the clipping boundary value information among the parameters input from the previous stage to select only those coordinate values of the vertices of each polygon manually entered from the previous stage that fall within the display area. and output it. If the polygon data crosses the clipping boundary value, find and output the intersection.

The Z sorting unit 27 performs sorting by Z value using the Z value of the center coordinates of the object data and environment data input from the previous stage, and sequentially outputs object data and polygons forming environment data that are far from the viewpoint. do.

The dot development section 28 calculates the luminance value inside the polygon from the coordinates and luminance values of the vertices of each polygon sequentially outputted from the Z sorting section 27 and writes it into the frame buffer 19.

The display unit 20 reads information on the luminance values accumulated in the frame buffer 19 in synchronization with scanning on the display surface, and displays the information as an image on the display surface.

〔Effect of the invention〕

As explained above, according to the present invention, in a graphics processing device for displaying a three-dimensional object, geometric transformation is performed for performing processing such as coordinate transformation, brightness calculation, clipping, etc. using parameters given from a host. By burdening the processor with a small amount of processing such as selecting an address based on the Z coordinate value, the processing load on the host can be greatly reduced, thus improving the efficiency of the entire system and allowing high-speed display. It becomes like this.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

Fig. 1 is a diagram showing the basic configuration of the present invention, Fig. 2 is a diagram for explaining the present invention in detail, Part 3 is a diagram showing the data structure of environmental data, and Fig. 4 is a diagram showing one part of the present invention. Diagrams showing examples,
Figure 5 is a diagram showing a conventional graphics processing device; Figure 6 is a diagram showing a conventional graphics processing device;
Figures (a) and (b) are diagrams for explaining the visual field range determination process, and the seventh diagram is a diagram for explaining the resolution determination process. 5 6 1 is an object data storage means, 2 is an environment data storage means, 3 is a host, 4 is a geometric transformation processor, 5 is a display means, and 6 is a Z value determination section.

Claims (2)

[Claims] (1) It has object data storage means (1) for storing data representing an object of interest, and environmental data storage means (2) for storing data representing environmental objects forming an environment for the object of interest, Based on the control of step 3), the geometric transformation processor (4) performs graphics processing such as coordinate transformation, brightness calculation, and clipping on the data representing the object to create a set of three-dimensional objects consisting of the object of interest and environmental objects. In a graphics processing device that continuously displays objects on a flat surface in a display means (5), the environmental data storage means (2) stores data representing environmental objects divided into a plurality of levels of detail. At the same time, the geometric transformation processor (4) performs a process of selecting the level of fineness of data representing the environmental object in the environmental data storage means (2) according to the reference point coordinates of the object. A graphics processing device characterized by displaying images of environmental objects with different fineness depending on the distance from a viewpoint. (2) The geometric transformation processor (4) is connected to the Z value determination unit (6
), and after converting the reference point coordinates of the environmental object into coordinate values such that the line of sight direction and the Z-axis direction match, the Z-value determination unit (6) calculates the coordinate values of the conversion result and the coordinate values from the viewpoint. 2. The graphics processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the data to be processed is selected from the environmental object data stored in the environmental data storage means (2) by comparing and determining the distance.