
132 4. Basic visualization
4.5.2 Basic random pro cedur a l textures
Simply generating random numbers does not lead to the creation of very in-
teresting textures. Wh at is required is a random function which is spatially
correlated, that is, the surface attributes at two different locations are similar
if the points are close together but if the points are far apart then calculated
surface attributes will be quite independ ent of one another.
A random number generator with just these properties was originally pro-
posed by Perlin [69] in what turned out to be a seminal paper on the topic.
Textures based on Perlin’s ideas call u pon one basic function: ...