Textured tile rotation system and method

Claim 3

The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of displaying at least a portion of the rotated textured tile on a display device.

Claim 4

The method of claim 1, wherein the step of selecting a period further comprises the computer-implemented step of obtaining pixel values in the rotated supertile along the selected axis.

Claim 5

The method of claim 3, wherein the obtaining step comprises interpolating between pixel values.

Claim 6

The method of claim 3, wherein the step of selecting a period further comprises the computer-implemented steps of: (a) creating a window containing a copy of the obtained pixel values; (b) choosing a tolerance; (c) choosing a nonzero initial offset; (d) choosing a slide increment; (e) positioning the window along the selected axis with an end of the window located at the initial offset from an edge of the rotated supertile; (f) comparing the window pixel values at positions separated by the slide increment to the supertile pixel values at corresponding reference positions to determine whether all pairs of compared pixel values differ by more than the tolerance and then performing whichever of step (g) and step (h) applies in response to the determination; (g) if no pair of compared pixel values differs by more than the tolerance, then selecting the distance traveled by the window from the edge of the rotated supertile as the period; and (h) if at least one pair of compared pixel values differs by more than the tolerance, then sliding the window along the selected axis by the slide increment and repeating step (f) and its successor steps until step (g) is performed or the sliding step results in a window position which mars comparison of corresponding pixel values.

Claim 7

The method of claim 5, wherein the window has a length which is at least the length of the initial textured tile along the selected axis.

Claim 8

The method of claim 5, wherein the window has a length which is an integer multiple of the length of the initial textured tile along the selected axis.

Claim 9

The method of claim 1, wherein the selecting step comprises perturbing the rotational orientation of the rotated supertile and then selecting a period within the perturbed rotated supertile.

Claim 12

The method of claim 9, further comprising the computer-implemented steps of cropping the rotated textured tile and then displaying the cropped rotated textured tile on a display device.

Claim 13

The method of claim 9, further comprising the computer-implemented step of displaying a plurality of copies of the rotated textured tile on a display device.

Claim 14

The method of claim 9, wherein the creating step creates a rotated supertile from four quadrants which are joined by two orthogonal axes.

Claim 15

The method of claim 12, wherein each quadrant in the rotated supertile contains a square integer number of adjacent rotated copies of the initial textured tile.

Claim 16

The method of claim 9, wherein the step of selecting an X-period further comprises the computer-implemented steps of: (a) creating a window containing a copy of a plurality of pixel values of the rotated supertile along the X-axis; (b) choosing an X-tolerance; (c) choosing an X-axis slide increment; (d) choosing a nonzero X-axis initial offset; (e) positioning the window along the X-axis with an end of the window located at the initial offset from an edge of the rotated supertile; (f) comparing the window pixel values at positions separated by the slide increment to the supertile pixel values at corresponding reference positions to determine whether all pairs of compared pixel values differ by more than the tolerance and then performing whichever of step (g) and step (h) applies in response to the determination; (g) if no pair of compared pixel values differs by more than the tolerance, then selecting the distance traveled by the window from the reference position as the period; and (h) if at least one pair of compared pixel values differs by more than the tolerance, then sliding the window along the X-axis by the X-axis slide increment and repeating step (f) and its successor steps until step (g) is performed or the sliding step results in a window position which mars comparison of corresponding pixel values; and wherein the step of selecting a Y-period further comprises steps corresponding to steps (a) through (h) but utilizing the Y-axis rather than the X-axis.

Claim 17

The method of claim 9, wherein the rotated textured tile is a square subtile of the rotated supertile.

Claim 18

The method of claim 15, wherein the using step further comprises finding the least common multiple of the X-period and the Y-period and the rotated textured tile has the least common multiple number of pixels along each side.

Claim 19

The method of claim 16, further comprising the computer-implemented steps of: choosing a maximum dimension for the rotated textured tile; determining that the least common multiple of the X-period and the Y-period exceeds the maximum dimension; perturbing a parameter; and repeating the selecting steps until the least common multiple of the X-period and the Y-period does not exceed the maximum dimension.

Claim 20

The method of claim 17, wherein the perturbing step perturbs the rotational orientation of the rotated supertile.

Claim 21

The method of claim 17, wherein the perturbing step perturbs a tolerance used to determine whether pairs of compared pixel values differ when performing at least one of the selecting steps.

Claim 24

The system of claim 20, wherein the means for producing the rotated texture tile includes means for producing at least a necessary portion of a rotated supertile.

Claim 25

The system of claim 21, wherein the means for producing the rotated texture tile includes means for selecting periods along axes of the rotated supertile.

Claim 26

The system of claim 22, wherein the means for selecting periods includes means for adjusting the rotated supertile.

Claim 27

The system of claim 22, wherein the means for selecting periods includes means for selecting and applying window and best fit criteria.

Claim 28

The system of claim 24, wherein the means for selecting periods further includes means for adjusting and reapplying the window and best fit criteria.

Claim 29

The system of claim 24, wherein the means for selecting and applying window and best fit criteria include choosing and applying a least squares metric to compare current pixels with reference pixels.

Claim 30

The system of claim 24, wherein the means for selecting and applying window and best fit criteria include choosing and applying a minimum-locating metric to compare current pixels with reference pixels.

Claim 31

A computer-readable storage medium having a configuration that represents data and instructions which cause a computer system to perform the texture manipulation steps of claim 1.

Claim 32

The storage medium of claim 28, wherein the medium is configured to perform the steps of claim 5.

Claim 33

The storage medium of claim 28, wherein the medium is configured to perform the steps of claim 8.

Claim 34

A computer-readable storage medium having a configuration that represents data and instructions which cause a computer system to perform the texture manipulation steps of claim 9.

Claim 35

The storage medium of claim 31, wherein the medium is configured to perform the steps of claim 14.