Bump mapping is a technique used in 3D computer graphics to apply a 2D image to the surface of an object to change its appearance. The 2D image determines the height of the corresponding location on a 3D model, allowing for fine detail and accurate shadows without the need for memory-intensive meshes. Bump mapping relies on a grayscale 2D texture image, where each color is translated into a specific height. The technique can be used for various purposes, but it never causes the geometry of the object to protrude outside its basic shape.
In computer graphics, especially three-dimensional (3D) computer graphics, bump mapping is a way of applying a two-dimensional (2D) image to the surface of an object to change the appearance of its geometry. A bump map is a 2D image where each image determines the height of its corresponding location on a 3D model, or alternatively is transparent to indicate that there is no geometry at any given point on the model. When the 2D image is texture mapped onto the surface of the 3D object, the rendering engine will modify the geometry of the object and move each point associated with a pixel in the 2D image a certain distance from its original coordinate by an amount that matches its texture pixel. This allows for very fine amounts of detail that can respond to light, cast accurate shadows, and even cover background objects without the need for fine, memory-intensive meshes to construct the geometry. An example of this type of mapping would be applying a satellite photo of the Earth to a sphere, with the bump mapping causing points on the surface of the sphere to be higher where there are mountains and flatter where there are mountains. oceans.
Bump mapping relies on a 2D texture image for the data needed to render an object. The 2D image is made up of pixels of different colors and each color is translated into a specific height. Most of these images are grayscale because it is easy to determine the height of an area when black equals no height, pure white will be the maximum height, and grays will be in between.
When an object has 2D texture for bump mapping applied to it, the position of each pixel is mapped to a point in the geometry of the object. If the texture pixel in the image, called a texel, has a non-zero value, the 3D coordinate of the model surface is adjusted by the value of the pixel away from the object’s center in the direction of the surface normal. The amount of motion represented by each texel unit can be set very low so that bump mapping can be used to create only slight deformities in a surface, or it can be set high so that a map with Embossed texture results in a wildly jagged terrain.
There are many uses for bump mapping in computer graphics, from displaying 2D cartographic maps in 3D to geometrically simulating highly detailed textures, such as the woven surface of a sweater. It should be noted that bump mapping is very similar to bump mapping, and some programs actually optimize remote mapping within a scene by restoring bump mapping. The main difference is that while it is possible to achieve similar surface effects, bump mapping never actually causes the geometry of the object to protrude outside of its basic geometric shape. This means that if a sphere is bump mapped with an image of mountains, the visible surface will accurately render the mountains but the edges of the sphere and the sphere’s shadow will remain perfectly round. The bump mapping technique would actually modify the sphere so that its geometry accurately reflects the heights of the texture.
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