Right-triangular subdivision for texture mapping ray-traced objects

Abstract

The introduction of global illumination and texture mapping enabled the generation of high-quality, realistic looking images of computer graphics models. We describe a fast and efficient 2D texture mapping algorithm that uses triangle-to-triangle mapping, taking advantage of mapping an arbitrary triangle to a right triangle. This requires fewer floating point operations for finding the 2D texture coordinates and little preprocessing and storage. Texture mapping is combined with ray tracing for better visual effects. A filtering technique alternative to area sampling is developed to avoid aliasing artifacts. This technique uses linear eye rays, and only one eye ray per pixel is fired. A uniform supersampling filtering technique eliminates aliasing artifacts at the object edges.