Method and Mechanism for Programmable Filtering of Texture Map Data in 3D Graphics Subsystems

Abstract

A system, method and apparatus to provide flexible texture filtering. A programmable texture filtering module is introduced into the graphics processing pipeline of a graphic coprocessor and graphic processor integrated with the host. A program from a defined instruction set may then be loaded into texture processing cores to process texture data consistent with the program.

1 . A method comprising:
 fetching coordinate data for a pixel to be rendered;   fetching texel values corresponding to the pixel;   filtering the texel values through a programmable filter module, the programmable filter module to load and execute a filter program; and   outputting a filtered texture value for the pixel.   
   
   
       2 . The method of  claim 1  wherein fetching coordinate data comprises:
 retrieving X, Y, Z coordinate data from a vertex pipeline.   
   
   
       3 . The method of  claim 1  further comprising:
 writing coordinate fraction data to a plurality of registers.   
   
   
       4 . The method of  claim 1  wherein outputting comprises:
 writing the filtered texture value to a register; and   signaling a processor that the filtered texture value is available.   
   
   
       5 . The method of  claim 1  wherein filtering texel values comprises:
 reading a control register; and   using at least one location specified in the control register as a source location.   
   
   
       6 . An apparatus comprising:
 a fragment processing module;   a programmable texture filtering module in communication with the fragment processing module to programmably filter texture data corresponding to at least one pixel by loading and executing a filter program; and   a frame buffer processing module to combine filtered texture data with an existing frame buffer.   
   
   
       7 . The apparatus of  claim 6  wherein the programmable texture filtering module further comprises:
 a plurality of temporary registers; and   at least one output register.   
   
   
       8 . The apparatus of  claim 7  wherein the programmable texture filtering module further comprises:
 source registers that are read only.   
   
   
       9 . The apparatus of  claim 7  wherein the programmable texture filtering module further comprises:
 a status register;   an address register;   an offset register; and   a plurality of fraction registers.   
   
   
       10 . The apparatus of  claim 6  wherein the programmable texture filtering module comprises:
 a plurality of processing cores to execute an instruction set.   
   
   
       11 . The apparatus of  claim 10  wherein a subset of the plurality of cores are to execute the filtering program on at least one pixel in parallel. 
   
   
       12 . A system comprising:
 a memory;   a plurality of texture processing cores (TPCs) coupled to the memory to programmably filter texture data, each of the plurality of TPCs to load and execute a filtering program;   a fragment processing module to apply the filtered texture data to at least one fragment; and   a display to display an image created using the at least one fragment.   
   
   
       13 . The system of  claim 12  wherein the plurality of TPCs and the fragment processing module are integrated with a host processor. 
   
   
       14 . The system of  claim 12  wherein the plurality of TPCs and the fragment processing module reside in a graphics coprocessor. 
   
   
       15 . The system of  claim 14  further comprising:
 an accelerated graphics port coupling the graphics coprocessor to the memory.   
   
   
       16 . The system of  claim 12  comprising:
 a register set associated with each TPC of the plurality.   
   
   
       17 . A computer readable storage media storing executable computer program instructions which when executed cause a digital processing system to perform a method comprising:
 fetching coordinate data for a pixel to be rendered;   fetching texel values corresponding to the pixel;   filtering the texel values through a programmable filter module;   loading a filter program by the programmable filter module;   executing the filtering program by the programmable filter module; and   outputting a filtered texture value for the pixel.   
   
   
       18 . The computer readable storage media storing computer program instructions of  claim 17  which when executed cause a digital processing system to perform a method further comprising:
 retrieving X, Y, Z coordinate data from a vertex pipeline.   
   
   
       19 . The computer readable storage media storing computer program instructions of  claim 17  which when executed cause a digital processing system to perform a method further comprising:
 writing coordinate fraction data to a plurality of registers.   
   
   
       20 . The computer readable storage media storing computer program instructions of  claim 17  which when executed cause a digital processing system to perform a method further comprising:
 writing the filtered texture value to a register; and   signaling a processor that the filtered texture value is available.   
   
   
       21 . The computer readable storage media storing computer program instructions of  claim 17  which when executed cause a digital processing system to perform a method further comprising:
 reading a control register; and   using at least one location specified in the control register as a source location.