Triangle traversing method and a rasterizer adopting the same

Claim 1

In a computer graphics system including a rasterizer, a method of operation of the rasterizer including a method for traversing a triangle defined by three vertices, comprising: assigning first and second vertices as a starting point and a final point, respectively; assigning a reference point, a first edge point and a second edge point to the starting point; conducting primary traversing including 1) shifting the reference point by one pixel in a primary traversing direction 2) producing a plurality of edge function values of the shifted reference point to determine whether the shifted reference point is located within the triangle, conducting secondary traversing from the shifted reference point including further shifting the shifted reference point in a secondary traversing direction until the points of a line within the triangle connecting first and second edges are all traversed and 2) storing the two outermost points traversed in the secondary traversing as updated first and second edge points, respectively, 3) producing image values of the shifted reference point when the shifted reference point is within the triangle; and repeatedly performing said primary traversing and said secondary traversing, until said final point is traversed.