Visual display systems of the computer generated image type

[75] Inventor: Martin J. P. Bolton, Crawley,

England [73] Assignee: Redifon Simulation Limited, Sussex, England [21] Appl. No.:_ 159,442 [22] Filed: Jim. 13, 1980 [30] Foreign Application Priority Data Jun. 15, 1979 [GB] United Kingdom ............... .. 7920882 Jun. 9, 1980 [GB] United Kingdom ............... .. 8018838 [51] Int. Cl.3 .............................................. .. G09B 9/08 [52] U.S. Cl. .................................. .. 364/521; 358/104; 434/43 [58] Field of Search .............. .. 369/515, 521; 358/104; 434/43 [56] References Cited U.S. PATENT DOCUMENTS 3,996,672 12/ 1976 Osofsky et al. . 434/43

3,999,308 12/1976 Peters ........ .. 434/43

4,179,823 12/1979 Sullivan et al. ............... .. 364/521 X 4,263,726 4/1981 Bolton ................................. .. 434/43

Primary Examiner—Felix D. Gruber Attorney, Agent, or Firm—-Larson and Taylor

‘[57] ABSTRACT

A visual display system of the computer generated image type, for a ground based flight-simulator having a rectangular raster-scanned display and having a surface detail information store for providing a visual display of textured surfaces in perspective during simulated flight. The system includes a surface detail generator comprising a perspective transformation computer and a surface detail store. The perspective transformation computer is organized as a pipeline processor to computete in real time the perspective transformation from the textured surface (ground) plane to the display plane. Scanning of the surface detail store is controlled in a manner comparable with a trapezium scan of a photographic image, for the purpose of the perspective transformation.

6 Claims, 42 Drawing Figures

121] TIL»

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