Pattern based procedural textures

Abstract

Numerous real-time applications such computer games or flight simulators require non-repetitive high-resolution texturing on large landscapes. We propose an algorithm which procedurally determines the texture value at any surface location by aperiodically combining provided patterns according to user-defined controls such as a probability distribution (possibly non stationary). Our algorithm can be implemented on programmable hardware by taking advantage of the texture indirection ability of recent graphics boards. We use explicit and virtual indirection tables to determine the pattern to apply at each pixel as well as its attributes (displacement, scaling, time...). This provides the programmer with a very high resolution virtual texture with nice properties: Low memory consumption, no periodicity, control of the statistics, numerous control parameters (which can be edited on the fly). Our representation consists of building blocks that we combine in order to illustrate various convenient texture modalities such as aperiodic tiling, sparse convolution, domain transitions and animated textures.