Overview
Polygons alone look flat and lifeless. Texture mapping solved this by wrapping 2D images—textures—onto 3D surfaces, adding detail that geometry couldn’t practically provide. A brick wall didn’t need thousands of polygons; it needed one rectangle with a brick image. The technique became fundamental to real-time 3D graphics.
Fast facts
- Purpose: Add surface detail.
- Method: UV coordinate mapping.
- Benefit: Detail without geometry.
- Hardware: Dedicated texture units.
UV coordinates
| Concept | Function |
|---|
| U axis | Horizontal texture position |
| V axis | Vertical texture position |
| Mapping | Texture to vertex association |
| Interpolation | Fill polygon interior |
Mapping methods
| Type | Application |
|---|
| Planar | Flat surfaces |
| Cylindrical | Rounded objects |
| Spherical | Globes, balls |
| UV unwrap | Complex shapes |
Perspective correction
| Issue | Solution |
|---|
| Affine distortion | Warping on angles |
| Per-pixel division | Correct perspective |
| Hardware support | GPU calculation |
| Software fallback | Subdivision tricks |
| Platform | Method |
|---|
| PlayStation | Affine (warping visible) |
| Saturn | Quadrilateral subdivision |
| Nintendo 64 | Perspective-correct |
| PC (3dfx) | Full correction |
Filtering methods
| Filter | Quality |
|---|
| Nearest neighbour | Pixelated |
| Bilinear | Smooth, blurry |
| Trilinear | Mipmap blending |
| Anisotropic | Angle-aware |
Mipmapping
| Purpose | Implementation |
|---|
| Distance scaling | Pre-scaled versions |
| Performance | Smaller textures far away |
| Aliasing | Reduces shimmer |
Memory considerations
| Factor | Impact |
|---|
| Resolution | VRAM usage |
| Colour depth | Memory per texel |
| Compression | Size reduction |
| Palettes | Colour lookup |
See also