US 12,217,352 B2
Systems and methods for soft shadowing in 3-D rendering casting multiple rays from ray origins
Justin P. DeCell, San Francisco, CA (US); and Luke T. Peterson, San Francisco, CA (US)
Assigned to Imagination Technologies Limited, Kings Langley (GB)
Filed by Imagination Technologies Limited, Kings Langley (GB)
Filed on Jun. 19, 2023, as Appl. No. 18/211,517.
Application 18/211,517 is a continuation of application No. 17/341,250, filed on Jun. 7, 2021, granted, now 11,682,159, issued on Jun. 20, 2023.
Application 17/341,250 is a continuation of application No. 16/706,584, filed on Dec. 6, 2019, granted, now 11,030,795, issued on Jun. 8, 2021.
Application 16/706,584 is a continuation of application No. 16/030,510, filed on Jul. 9, 2018, granted, now 10,535,183, issued on Jan. 14, 2020.
Application 16/030,510 is a continuation of application No. 15/059,818, filed on Mar. 3, 2016, granted, now 10,049,489, issued on Aug. 14, 2018.
Claims priority of provisional application 62/127,439, filed on Mar. 3, 2015.
Prior Publication US 2023/0334760 A1, Oct. 19, 2023
This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.
Int. Cl. G06T 15/06 (2011.01); G06T 17/00 (2006.01)
CPC G06T 15/06 (2013.01) [G06T 17/005 (2013.01)] 20 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A machine-implemented method of graphics processing, comprising:
determining whether a plurality of rays cast from surfaces in a scene are occluded from reaching a light, wherein each ray of the plurality of rays is associated with one or more pixels;
for rays that are determined to be occluded from the light, recording a distance to its respective occlusion;
for rays that are determined to be not occluded from the light, searching for one or more pixels associated with a ray that is determined to be occluded from the light, and if at least one pixel is found in the search, recording a distance based on one or more of the distances recorded for the at least one found pixel; and
for rays for which a distance is recorded, using the recorded distance for the ray to determine shadowing for the one or more pixels associated with the ray.