The Systolic Pixel: A Visible Surface Algorithm for VLSI.

Abstract

The Systolic Pixel or Spixel is a novel architecture for an intelligent pixel-based graphics database for geometric-solid models. An algorithm is described which performs visible surface calculations for any complexity of coloured 3-dimensional (3-D) surface and which structures geometric-solid model data in a natural way. The algorithm/architecture of the spixel features a simple set of priority rules acting upon data in nearest neighbour locations and a simple set of movement rules of data to nearest neighbour locations. The spixel is constructed out of identical functional units. These features are attractive for an implementation of the algorithm in Very Large Scale Integration (VLSI).