Okay; I'm no graphics expert, but I'm not sure which bit of this is the novel part.

Quote:Original post by jasjas
Hi Trapper Zoid, the gist of his claims are:
1: a number of nested regular grids (clipmaps) surrounding the viewer,
2: the contents of each clipmap is cached in video memory,
3: each clipmap contains 1/2 the resolution of the previous one,

Surely these three steps have been done before, right? I'm not so sure about storing the data in video memory, but using multiple regular grids to represent terrain data must have been used? That seems reasonably obvious to me; similar techniques are used in computer vision for looking for features.

Quote:
4: geomorphing the vertices between shared edges, and
5: when the viewer moves, the clipmaps are incrementally filled with new data using toroidal (wrap-around) access.

I'm not that sure what steps 4 and 5 involve. Is step 4 linking the seams between the high detail clipmap close to the camera with the lower detail clipmaps further away? I'm also not entirely sure what step 5 means, either. It's possible these are new, because I'm not that knowledgable about the hardware side of things, or what's involved with step 4. However, I have seen LOD implemented in terrain engines for ages.

It could be that the novel part is using video memory for blazingly fast performance; I wouldn't know if that was new or not.

Heh, I suppose I'd be more use if I was actually a graphics programmer [smile]. I suppose I'm just curious about everything, especially new algorithms to do cool stuff.

Quote:Original post by phantom
instead of all this knee-jerk reaction to it why not email the guy who helpped create the system and ask what the score is?

I was going to recommend this as well, but I forgot [smile]. However, a problem might be that the patent is granted to Microsoft, not the researchers involved. Most researchers I know would be thrilled for people to use their algorithms, but the legal department at Microsoft might have other views.

As I recall the guy who invented/came up with it works for MS in their research division, so in theory at least he might have an idea of the state of play, if not you can always ask if he can pass it up the chain/give you the address of someone to talk to about it..

Quote:Original post by phantom
As I recall the guy who invented/came up with it works for MS in their research division, so in theory at least he might have an idea of the state of play, if not you can always ask if he can pass it up the chain/give you the address of someone to talk to about it..

Hi phantom, I'll email him and ask him if he knows if free implementations are allowed. Although he's the inventor, Microsoft will have the final say.

MS bends over backwards to make game development on their platforms as easy as possible...do you honestly believe they're going to release an algorithm for use in video games and then not let anybody use it?

CM

Quote:Original post by Conner McCloud
MS bends over backwards to make game development on their platforms as easy as possible...do you honestly believe they're going to release an algorithm for use in video games and then not let anybody use it?

Good point, well made!