Relief mapping (computer graphics)

In computer graphics, relief mapping is an texture mapping technique used to render the surface details of three dimensional objects accurately and efficiently. It can produce accurate depictions of self-occlusion, self-shadowing, and parallax. It is as form of short-distance raytrace done on a pixel shader.

Recently Pamplona et al. published a new technique which animates relief impostors, billboards with normal mapping, displacement maps, or any other texture-based resolution-independent representation. The animation is encoded using an RBF representation, which is saved into a texture. At runtime, the RBF texture is used to warp the relief texture on the GPU producing the desired animation. The proposed technique preserves the relief-impostor properties, allowing the viewer to observe changes in occlusion and parallax during the animation. It can be used produce real-time realistic animations of live and moving objects undergoing repetitive motions.

See also

• Shaded relief, a cartographic technique that portrays terrain by using simulated shadows
• Bump mapping
• Normal mapping
• Parallax mapping

External links

• Manuel's Relief texture mapping