Real-Time Rendering, Third Edition, 3rd Edition

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Chapter 6

Texturing

“All it takes is for the rendered image to look right.”

—Jim Blinn

A surface’s texture is its look and feel—just think of the texture of an oil

painting. In computer graphics, texturing is a process that takes a surface

and modifies its appearance at each location using some image, function,

or other data source. As an example, instead of precisely representing the

geometry of a brick wall, a color image of a brick wall is applied to a single

polygon. When the polygon is viewed, the color image appears where the

polygon is located. Unless the viewer gets close to the wall, the lack of

geometric detail (e.g., the fact that the image of bricks and mortar is on a

smooth surface) will not be noticeable. Color image texturing also ...