Computer graphics apparatus having an improved walk-through function

DETAILED DESCRIPTION The first object of the present invention is to provide an improved walk-through function in order to obtain a viewline which is close to an actual viewline in computer graphics by providing various walk-through attributes to the object.
The second object of the present invention is to provide an improved calculation of an expectation time in order to obtain smooth animated images in computer graphics.
In accordance with the present invention, there is provided a computer graphics apparatus including an input unit for receiving from a user a viewline moving instruction for moving the viewline on computer graphics; a viewline control unit operatively connected to the input unit for determining positions and directions of the viewline on the computer graphics; a storage unit operatively connected to the viewline control unit for storing computer graphics data at least including three-dimensional data of objects, walk-through attribute data and viewline data; an image generation unit operatively connected to the storage unit and the viewline control unit for generating images including animated images based on the position of the viewline and the computer graphics date; and an image display unit operatively connected to the image generation unit for displaying images generated by the image generation unit.
In a preferred embodiment, the viewline control unit comprises a downward object searching unit for searching for objects positioned under the viewline based on the walk-through attribute; a moving vector calculation unit for calculating a moving vector based on the walk-through attribute data and a viewline vector; and a viewline movement processing unit for moving the viewline along with the moving vector.
In another preferred embodiment, the viewline control unit further comprises a viewline height adjusting unit for adjusting the height of the viewline.
In still another preferred embodiment, the viewline control unit further comprises and interference processing unit for checking for a possibility of collision of the viewline with an obstacle when moving the viewline on the computer graphics