VIRTUAL GRAPHICS PROCESSOR AND METHOD FOR EMBEDDED, REAL TIME DISPLAY SYSTEMS

• Main Authors: FISHER, JESSE, G, DENNISON, TAMARA, G, LINDSLEY, STEVEN, E, WEINGARTNER, THOMAS, A
• Format: Patent
• Language: English; French; German
• Published: 20.01.1999
• Edition: 6
• Subjects: CALCULATING; COMPUTING; COUNTING; ELECTRIC DIGITAL DATA PROCESSING; PHYSICS

The virtual graphics processor is a software process that enables different video display systems to execute the same graphical display application. The process also permits the display application to be updated or reconfigured in real time without changing the embedded display system software. The parts of the virtual graphics processor include an application graphics database for storing graphic primitives and associated static primitive data defining one or more graphic pages in a display application. An image control interface (video library) associates graphic functions of the particular video display system with graphic primitives in a requested page. An instruction sequencer within the virtual graphics processor responds to a display request by obtaining the requested graphic page from the graphics database and associated graphics functions from the video library. The addresses of the graphic functions and associated data for the graphic page are passed from the instruction sequencer to an instruction queue. A graphics logic unit reads the addresses from the queue and calls the function, providing each called function with the associated data. The display system responds to the called graphics functions by displaying the requested page with its associated data on a video screen.