The F-Buffer: A Rasterization-Order FIFO Buffer for Multi-Pass Rendering

dc.contributor.authorMark, William R.en_US
dc.contributor.authorProudfoot, Kekoaen_US
dc.contributor.editorKurt Akeley and Ulrich Neumannen_US
dc.date.accessioned2013-10-28T09:58:49Z
dc.date.available2013-10-28T09:58:49Z
dc.date.issued2001en_US
dc.description.abstractMulti-pass rendering is a common method of virtualizing graphics hardware to overcome limited resources. Most current multi-pass rendering techniques use the RGBA framebuffer to store intermediate results between each pass. This method of storing intermediate results makes it difficult to conectly render partially-transparent surfaces, and reduces the performance of shaders that need to preserve more than one intermediate result between passes. We propose an alternative approach to storing intermediate results that solves these problems. This approach stores intermediate colors (or other values) that are generated by a rendering pass in a FIFO buffer as the values exit the fragment pipeline. On a subsequent pass, the contents of the FIFO buffer are fed into the top of the fragment pipeline. We refer to this FIFO buffer as a fragment-stream buffer (or F-buffer), because this approach has the effect of associating intermediate results with particular rasterization fragments, rather than with an (x,y) location in the framebuffer. Implementing an F-buffer requires some changes to current mainstream graphics architectures, but these changes can be minor. We describe the designs pace associated with implementing an F-buffer, and compare the F-buffer to recirculating pipeline designs. We implement F-buffers in the Mesa software renderer, and demonstrate our programmable-shading system running on top of this renderer.en_US
dc.description.seriesinformationEurographics/SIGGRAPH Graphics Hardware Workshop 2001en_US
dc.identifier.isbn158113407Xen_US
dc.identifier.issn1727-3471en_US
dc.identifier.urihttps://doi.org/10.2312/EGGH/EGGH01/057-063en_US
dc.publisherThe Eurographics Associationen_US
dc.subjectI.3.1 [Computer Graphics]en_US
dc.subjectHardware Architectureen_US
dc.subjectGraphics processorsen_US
dc.subjectI.3.7 [Computer Graphics]en_US
dc.subjectThree Dimensional Graphics and Realismen_US
dc.subjectColoren_US
dc.subjectshadingen_US
dc.subjectshadowing and textureen_US
dc.titleThe F-Buffer: A Rasterization-Order FIFO Buffer for Multi-Pass Renderingen_US
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