Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- I Introduction
- II Transformations and Viewing
- III Lighting, Illumination, and Shading
- IV Averaging and Interpolation
- V Texture Mapping
- VI Color
- VII Bézier Curves
- VIII B-Splines
- IX Ray Tracing
- X Intersection Testing
- XI Radiosity
- XII Animation and Kinematics
- A Mathematics Background
- B RayTrace Software Package
- Bibliography
- Index
- Plate section
V - Texture Mapping
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- I Introduction
- II Transformations and Viewing
- III Lighting, Illumination, and Shading
- IV Averaging and Interpolation
- V Texture Mapping
- VI Color
- VII Bézier Curves
- VIII B-Splines
- IX Ray Tracing
- X Intersection Testing
- XI Radiosity
- XII Animation and Kinematics
- A Mathematics Background
- B RayTrace Software Package
- Bibliography
- Index
- Plate section
Summary
Texture Mapping an Image
Texture mapping, in its simplest form, consists of applying a graphics image, a picture, or a pattern to a surface. A texture map can, for example, apply an actual picture to a surface such as a label on a can or a picture on a billboard or can apply semirepetitive patterns such as wood grain or stone surfaces. More generally, a texture map can hold any kind of information that affects the appearance of a surface: the texture map serves as a precomputed table, and the texture mapping then consists simply of table lookup to retrieve the information affecting a particular point on the surface as it is rendered. If you do not use texture maps, your surfaces will either be rendered as very smooth, uniform surfaces or will need to be rendered with very small polygons so that you can explicitly specify surface properties on a fine scale.
Texture maps are often used to very good effect in real-time rendering settings such as computer games since they give good results with a minimum of computational load. In addition, texture maps are widely supported by graphics hardware such as graphics boards for PCs so that they can be used without needing much computation from a central processor.
Texture maps can be applied at essentially three different points in the graphics rendering process, which we list more or less in order of increasing generality and flexibility:
A texture map can hold colors that are applied to a surface in “replace” or “decal” mode: the texture map colors just overwrite whatever surface colors are otherwise present. In this case, no lighting calculations should be performed, as the results of the lighting calculations would just be overwritten.
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- 3D Computer GraphicsA Mathematical Introduction with OpenGL, pp. 126 - 145Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2003