Two patent applications were filed in Graphics & Rendering this month, with one from Tencent and one from Nintendo.
Nintendo's filing covers a voxel mesh system that allows player actions to dynamically deform and restore terrain geometry while managing intersection data efficiently, supporting destructible environments with enhanced visual quality. Tencent's application describes a GPU shader-based approach to parallel decoding of compressed textures, reducing image load times by offloading work from the CPU for games and applications.
Nintendo received 1 patent for a voxel-based terrain system that allows players to destroy and rebuild geometry while maintaining high visual quality. The system tracks intersection data differently depending on whether changes are permanent or temporary, deleting this information only when terrain is destructively altered while keeping it intact for reversible deformations. This dual approach lets the mesh reconstruct accurately without consuming excessive memory or processing power, supporting environments similar to Minecraft but with greater graphical detail.
Tencent received 1 patent for decoding compressed textures entirely on the GPU through shader-based parallel processing. The system assigns a dedicated GPU work group to each compression block, allowing all blocks to decode simultaneously rather than sequentially. By removing the CPU from the decode pipeline altogether, the approach speeds up image loading without adding computational burden to the processor, benefiting both games and other applications that rely on compressed texture assets.
All data sourced from USPTO patent filings. Google Patents may take several weeks to index recent publications. If a link is unavailable, search for the patent number at USPTO Patent Public Search.