Modern Texture Mapping in Computer Graphics

Figure 1: Rendering of virtual surface detail (left and center, [Policarpo et al. 2005]) and shadow mapping (right, from the pc game ’Crysis’). The original texture mapping algorithm was introduced to add detail, color and surface texture to computer generated graphics. Because by itself it lacks any capability to simulate changes of lighting, shadowing and perspective perturbations caused by finer surface detail a number of improvements like bump mapping, parallax mapping and relief mapping have been introduced. Another common use of textures is shadow mapping. This paper not only describes those modern day additions to basic texture mapping but focuses on the latest refinements of those techniques which finally give them the quality and performance required for real world applications