Graphic rendering system capable of performing real-time compression and decompression

Abstract

A graphic rendering system capable of performing real-time compression and decompression, which includes a storage device, a decompressor, a rendering engine, a first real-time compressor, a frame buffer and a first real-time decompressor. The storage device stores a compressed sprite image and a compressed background image. The decompressor performs a decompression operation to thereby obtain a sprite image and a background image. The rendering engine performs an image processing on the sprite image and the background image to thereby produce a partial display image. The first real-time compressor performs a real-time compression processing on the partial display image to thereby produce a compressed partial display image. The frame buffer temporarily stores the compressed partial display image. The first real-time decompressor performs a real-time decompression processing on the compressed partial display image to thereby output an image signal for display.

Description

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a conventional game application platform;

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of a graphic rendering system capable of performing real-time compression and decompression in accordance with the invention;

FIG. 3 is a schematic view of a sprite data structure in accordance with the invention;

FIG. 4 is a schematic view of an image processing performed by a rendering engine in accordance with the invention;

FIG. 5 is a schematic view of a golomb-rice coding operation in accordance with the invention;

FIG. 6 is a schematic view of a format of compressed data in accordance with the invention; and

FIG. 7 is a block diagram of a graphic rendering system capable of performing real-time compression and decompression in accordance with another embodiment of the invention.

Claims

1. A graphic rendering system capable of performing real-time compression and decompression, comprising: a storage device, for storing one or more compressed sprite images and one or more compressed background images;a decompressor, connected to the storage device, for performing a decompression operation on the one or more compressed sprite images and background images to thereby obtain one or more sprite images and background images respectively;a rendering engine, connected to the decompressor, for performing an image processing on the one or more sprite images and background images to thereby produce a partial display image;a first real-time compressor, connected to the rendering engine, for performing a real-time compression processing on the partial display image to thereby produce a compressed partial display image;a frame buffer, connected to the first real-time compressor, for temporarily storing the compressed partial display image; anda first real-time decompressor, connected to the frame buffer, for performing said real-time decompression processing on the compressed partial display image to thereby output an image signal for display.

2. The system as claimed in claim 1, further comprising a display device, connected to the first real-time decompressor, for displaying the image signal output by the first real-time decompressor.

3. The system as claimed in claim 1, wherein the storage device further stores a data structure of the one or more sprite images.

4. The system as claimed in claim 3, wherein the data structure comprises a coordinate field, a depth field and an alpha blending field.

5. The system as claimed in claim 4, wherein the coordinate field records a location for display of the one or more sprite images.

6. The system as claimed in claim 4, wherein the depth field records a depth of the one or more sprite images on display.

7. The system as claimed in claim 4, wherein the alpha blending field records a state to show whether the one or more sprite images are performed an alpha blending on display or not.

8. The system as claimed in claim 1, wherein the rendering engine performs an alpha blending on the one or more sprite images and the one or more background images.

9. The system as claimed in claim 1, wherein the first real-time compressor performs a Hadamard transform on a plurality of pixels from the partial display image to thereby obtain a plurality of frequency domain values corresponding to the plurality of pixels respectively.

10. The system as claimed in claim 9, wherein the first real-time compressor performs a golomb-rice coding operation on the plurality of frequency domain values to thereby obtain a compressed data corresponding to the plurality of pixels and store the compressed data in the frame buffer.

11. The system as claimed in claim 10, wherein the first real-time decompressor performs an inverse golomb-rice decoding operation on the compressed data to thereby obtain the plurality of frequency domain values corresponding to the plurality of pixels.

12. The system as claimed in claim 11, wherein the first real-time decompressor performs an inverse Hadamard transform on the plurality of frequency domain values to thereby obtain a plurality of pixel values corresponding to the plurality of pixels respectively.

13. The system as claimed in claim 12, wherein the plurality of pixels is eight pixels.

14. The system as claimed in claim 1, wherein the storage device and the frame buffer are separated memories.

15. The system as claimed in claim 14, wherein the storage device and the frame buffer are integrated in a memory.

16. The system as claimed in claim 2, further comprising: a data supply device, which provides data of an object image;a second real-time compressor, connected to the data supply device, for performing the real-time compression processing on the object image to thereby obtain a compressed object image and store the compressed object image in the frame buffer; anda second real-time decompressor, connected to the frame buffer, for performing the real-time decompression processing on the compressed object image to thereby obtain the object image.

17. The system as claimed in claim 16, wherein the rendering engine is connected to the second real-time decompressor and superimposes the object image onto the partial display image.

18. The system as claimed in claim 17, wherein the data supply device is an image extractor.

19. The system as claimed in claim 18, wherein the image extractor is a CCD type image capture device.

20. The system as claimed in claim 18, wherein the image extractor is a CMOS type image capture device.