Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
Use of indicates a limitation is not explicitly disclosed by the reference alone.
Claim(s) 1, 10-14, 18-20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Fursund (US 2016/0260247) in view of Kaplanyan (US 2011/0012901)
Claim 1
Fursund discloses a global lighting rendering method (abstract; “Once the light probes have been determined for a frame then the lighting at a pixel can be determined based on the lighting at the nearby light probe positions. Pixels can then be shaded based on the lighting determined for the pixel positions.”), performed by a computer device, the method comprising:
generating a plurality of surface elements of an object in a virtual scene (Fursund, ¶ 64: “FIG. 3 shows an example of a scene 302 which a surface 304. This is a very simple example, and in other examples there would likely be many more surfaces and objects within the scene.”);
determining, from the plurality of surface elements of the object, a target surface element whose distance to a light probe in the virtual scene satisfies a preset condition (Fursund, ¶ 7, 21: “The set of nearest light probes may include light probes for which the distance to the pixel position in world space is below a threshold value…he lighting indication for a determined visible surface of the scene for a pixel in the frame may be determined by: identifying a set of probe positions for the pixel; and implementing a distance-based weighting of the directional representations of lighting for the identified set of probe positions.”);
obtaining surface element lighting information of the target surface element, the surface element lighting information comprising direct lighting information and indirect lighting information, and (Fursund, ¶ 76: “The light probes (or “directional representations of lighting”) may be capable of storing direct and/or indirect lighting information, but in some examples the light probes only store indirect lighting information…”); and
performing global lighting rendering on the object in the virtual scene based on the surface element lighting information (Fursund, ¶ 89: “Once the directional representations of lighting at the local probe positions have been determined (i.e. once the local probes have been “resolved”), they can be used as described above to determine lighting indications for the determined visible surfaces of the scene for pixels in the frame”).
Fursund does not explicitly disclose, but Kaplanyan discloses the indirect lighting information being obtained by lighting accumulation of projected light from the target surface element (“sources to grid cells of said light propagation volume; accumulating directional, colored irradiance contributions of all secondary light sources in a respective grid cell and repeating this step of accumulating for all grid cells of the light propagation volume to thereby obtain an initial indirect light intensity distribution.”)
Before the effective filing date of this application, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to use accumulation.
One of ordinary skill in the art would have motivation to determine contributing light from non-directional sources projected from other surfaces. One of ordinary skill in the art would have had a reasonable expectation of success because Fursund also considers computation of non-directional lighting.
Claim 10
Fursund discloses wherein the performing global lighting rendering on the object in the virtual scene based on the surface element lighting information comprises:
determining object lighting information of each object in the virtual scene based on the surface element lighting information (Fursund, ¶ 65: “The lighting at the probe positions can be determined and stored, and then the lighting at visible surfaces identified for pixel positions can be determined based on the lighting at the probe positions.”);
determining lighting data of pixel points of each object based on the object lighting information (Fursund, ¶ 7: “For example, an indication of the lighting for a particular pixel may be determined based on a weighted average of a set of nearest light probes to the visible point or object”); and
performing lighting rendering on the pixel points of each object based on the lighting data (Fursund, ¶ 24: “There is further provided a graphics processing unit configured to render a sequence of frames”).
Claim 11
Fursund discloses wherein the determining object lighting information of each object in the virtual scene based on the surface element lighting information comprises:
determining probe lighting information at each light probe based on the surface element lighting information (Fursund, ¶ 77: “At this point a set of light probes 312 have been resolved for the current frame which indicate a directional representation of light passing through the probe positions 312 within the scene 302. If an object was located at a probe position then it would be lit by the light indicated by the appropriate light probe. For surfaces of objects that are not located at a probe position the lighting can be determined using a combination of light probes, as described below…For example, probe positions which are nearby the visible surface identified for a pixel in step S202 are identified. In this way the nearest light probes in world space to the surface which is visible at the pixel are identified.”);
determining a target light probe of which a distance to the object satisfies a preset distance (Fursund, ¶ 7: “For example, an indication of the lighting for a particular pixel may be determined based on a weighted average of a set of nearest light probes to the visible point or object”); and
determining the object lighting information of the object based on probe lighting information of the target light probe of light probes (Fursund, ¶ 81: “The processing logic 108 shades the pixel to determine a rendered pixel value.”).
Claim 12
Fursund discloses wherein the light probe is a light probe pre-placed in the virtual scene (Fursund, ¶ 64: “The black dots (one of which is denoted 312) represent light probes in the scene 302. The light probes may be distributed throughout the scene 302, e.g. according to a predetermined pattern”)
Claim 13
Fursund discloses wherein the indirect lighting information comprises at least one of primary indirect lighting information, secondary indirect lighting information, or multiple indirect lighting information (Fursund, ¶ 76: “The light probes (or “directional representations of lighting”) may be capable of storing direct and/or indirect lighting information, but in some examples the light probes only store indirect lighting information.”)
Claim 14
The same teachings and rationales in claim 1 are applicable to claim 14 with Fursund disclosing A computer device, comprising a memory and a processor, the memory having computer-readable instructions stored therein, the processor, when executing the computer- readable instructions, causing the computer device to implement a global lighting rendering method including (general purpose computing components in Fursund)
Claim 18
The same teachings and rationales in claim 10 are applicable to claim 18.
Claim 19
The same teachings and rationales in claim 13 are applicable to claim 19.
Claim 20
Examiner’s Interpretation:
Machine readable media can encompass forms of signal transmission media that falls outside of the four statutory categories of invention. MPEP 2106; citing In re Nuijten, 500 F.3d 1346, 84 USPQ2d 1495 (Fed. Cir. 2007). A claim whose BRI covers both statutory and non-statutory embodiments embraces subject matter that is not eligible for patent protection and therefore is directed to non-statutory subject matter. MPEP 2106.
Claim 20 as drafted recites non-transitory computer readable medium.
Because non-transitory without additional definition excludes signals and the like, the broadest reasonable interpretation of the claimed medium in view of Applicant’s specification covers only eligible subject matter.
Claim Mapping:
The same teachings and rationales in claim 1 are appliable to claim 20.
Claim(s) 2, 5, 15, 16 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Fursund (US 2016/0260247) in view of Kaplanyan (US 2011/0012901) and West (US 2004/0263511)
Claim 2
Fursund does not explicitly disclose, but West discloses further comprising:
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obtaining light source information of a virtual light source in the virtual scene (West, ¶ 276: “In FIGS. 27A, an object 3400 is shown illuminated by a lighting source 3410.”); and
generating a deep shadow map of the virtual scene based on the light source information (West, ¶ 89: “generating a deep shadow map for a light source”), and
the generating a plurality of surface elements of an object in a virtual scene comprising:
generating the plurality of surface elements of the object in the virtual scene based on the deep shadow map (West, ¶ 71, 91: “Each element (e.g., each surface or volume) that affects transmittance along a sample ray may have its own partial transmittance function computed independently.. An important feature of deep shadow maps is generality: deep shadow maps support ordinary surfaces, volumetric effects, dense fur, and even motion blur, effects that would normally be handled using different techniques. With deep shadow maps, these effects can all be combined in a single compact data structure, and rendered efficiently under a wide range of viewing and filtering conditions.”).
Before the effective filing date of this application, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to use a deep shadow map as claimed.
One of ordinary skill in the art would have motivation: “Embodiments of the invention employ a new form of shadow map, referred to herein as a “deep shadow map,” to provide greater flexibility and realism in the rendering of shadows. As opposed to shadow maps of the prior art that treat shadows in a binary manner (i.e., a surface is either lit or unlit) based on a single stored depth value, deep shadow maps permit partial shadowing to be represented explicitly as a function that varies with depth.”(West, ¶ 70). One of ordinary skill in the art would have had a reasonable expectation of success because Fursund also considers computation of shadows.
Claim 5
Fursund does not explicitly disclose, but West discloses further comprising:
determining a surface element parameter of each surface element (West, ¶ 264: “Accordingly, if the user wants to change the scattering characteristics of the material, the user can do so by varying these parameters”);
generating the deep shadow map based on the light source information of the virtual light source in the virtual scene (West, ¶ 89: “generating a deep shadow map for a light source”); and
determining surface element lighting information of each surface element based on the deep shadow map and the surface element parameter (West, ¶ 269: “taking into account, the surface normal direction, a color of the illumination determined in step 3320, above, a color of the surface, a image viewing plane normal, and the like. Other parameters are also contemplated and used in other embodiments of the present invention.”), and
the obtaining surface element lighting information of the target surface element comprising:
extracting the surface element lighting information of the target surface element from the surface element lighting information of each surface element (West, ¶ 151: “As part of the rendering process, the lighting characteristics of the surface (in the form of a filtered visibility value) are obtained via deep shadow map lookup as described in steps 1601 to 1616.”).
Before the effective filing date of this application, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to use a deep shadow map as claimed.
One of ordinary skill in the art would have motivation: “Embodiments of the invention employ a new form of shadow map, referred to herein as a “deep shadow map,” to provide greater flexibility and realism in the rendering of shadows. As opposed to shadow maps of the prior art that treat shadows in a binary manner (i.e., a surface is either lit or unlit) based on a single stored depth value, deep shadow maps permit partial shadowing to be represented explicitly as a function that varies with depth.”(West, ¶ 70). One of ordinary skill in the art would have had a reasonable expectation of success because Fursund also considers computation of shadows.
Claim 15
The same teachings and rationales in claim 2 are applicable to claim 15.
Claim 16
The same teachings and rationales in claim 5 are applicable to claim 16.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim(s) 3-4, 6-7, 8-9, 17 objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter:
Regarding claim(s) 3-4, the cited prior art does not suggest the claimed tile division in the context of deep shadow maps.
Regarding claim(s) 6-7, the cited prior art does not suggest superimposing as claimed.
Regarding claim(s) 8-9, 17, the cited prior art does not suggest reclaiming the surface in the context of the claim.
Additional Prior Art
Additional prior art relevant to Applicant’s disclosure but not relied upon:
Gruber (US 2015/0262412) also considers light probes in the same context:
“Graphics processing systems can include lighting effects when rendering images. “Light probes” are directional representations of lighting at particular probe positions in the space of a scene which is being rendered. Light probes can be determined iteratively, which can allow them to be determined dynamically, in real-time over a sequence of frames. Once the light probes have been determined for a frame then the lighting at a pixel can be determined based on the lighting at the nearby light probe positions. Pixels can then be shaded based on the lighting determined for the pixel positions.” (See abstract).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to RYAN M GRAY whose telephone number is (571)272-4582. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday through Friday, 9:00am-5:30pm (EST).
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Kee Tung can be reached on (571)272-7794. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/RYAN M GRAY/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2611
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