Real-time manipulation of texture-mapped surfaces

A system for real-time texture mapping was constructed, Here, "real-time" means that the system reacts to changes in parameter values which define the shape of surfaces and the viewing point that are given by its operator 30 times per second. This real-time processing enables interactive manipulation of texture-mapped free-form surfaces and various application software has been developed taking advantage of this ability. The system owes its performance to a new algorithm for texture mapping which is based on a newly proposed approximation scheme of mapping functions. In this scheme, a mapping function from the texture plane into the output screen is approximated by a linear function on each of the small regions which form the texture plane altogether. The algorithm is very simple and applicable to any smooth surface. It is especially efficient when implemented by a special-purpose hardware.