A new approach to combine texture compression and filtering

Abstract
Texture mapping has been widely used to improve the quality of 3D rendered images. To reduce the storage and bandwidth impact of texture mapping, compression systems are commonly used. To further increase the quality of the rendered images, texture filtering is also often adopted. These two techniques are generally considered to be independent. First a decompression step is executed to gather texture samples, which is then followed by a separate filtering step. We have investigated a system based on linear transforms that merges both phases together. This allows more efficient decompression and filtering at higher compression ratios. This paper formally presents our approach for any linear transformation, how the commonly used discrete cosine transform can be adapted to this new approach, and how this method can be implemented in real time on current-generation graphics cards using shaders. Through reuse of the existing hardware filtering, fast magnification and minification filtering is achieved. Our implementation provides fully anisotropically filtered samples four to six times faster than an implementation using two separate phases for decompression and filtering. Additionally, our transform-based compression also provides increased and variable compression ratios over standard hardware compression systems at a comparable or better quality level.
Link
Citation
Charles-Frederik Hollemeersch, Bart Pieters, Peter Lambert, and Rik Van de Walle. 2011. A new approach to combine texture compression and filtering. The Visual Computer. ??, ?? (2011).

Infinitex: An interactive editing system for the production of large texture data sets

Abstract
Recent advancements in graphics hardware have made the use of texture streaming methods feasible for real-time applications. Using these methods, not only texture resolution and detail can be increased up to gigapixel resolution, but when used together with well authored textures these techniques can offer dramatically improved visual quality. However, systems aiding in texture data production itself have received a lot less attention than the streaming and rendering problem. When using current production methods in a texture streaming environment, these methods tend to break down and reduce artist efficiency to the point where the technology is no longer used to its full potential. In this paper we describe the details behind our Infinitex system. Infinitex is a texture creation and editing system that allows the users, i.e. artists, to produce large texture data in an intuitive and interactive way. Our system goes beyond a simple editor, as it incorporates the whole production process from the initial empty environment until the final finished product and addresses all the challenges that arise along the way when producing gigabytes of texture data. In particular, we will focus on versioning, management, continuity, and security. We show how our system, through the use of just-in-time tile generation, offers interactive editing and management operations while meeting all the other constraints imposed on the system.
Link
Citation
Charles-Frederik Hollemeersch, Bart Pieters, Aljosha Demeulemeester, Frederik Cornillie, Bert Van Semmertier, Erik Mannens, Peter Lambert, Piet Desmet, and Rik Van de Walle. 2010. Graphics for Serious Games: Infinitex: An interactive editing system for the production of large texture data sets. Comput. Graph. 34, 6 (December 2010).

Gpu Pro Chapter 10.2: Accelerating Virtual Texturing Using CUDA

Abstract
In this chapter, we want to demonstrate how NVIDIA's CUDA (Compute Unified Device Architecture) platform can be used to reduce this CPU work and how it can be used to efficiently stream data between system memory and GPU memory. CUDA provides a straightforward way to address the GPU for general purpose computations, without the need to translate the problem in terms of shaders and textures. Although we implemented our system using CUDA, the theory will be equally applicable to upcoming vendor independent standards such as OpenCL or the DirectX Compute Shaders. The required hardware is getting cheaper and is no longer only available to the high-end market segment, making its use in commercial games attractive.
Link
Citation
Charles-Frederik Hollemeersch, Bart Pieters, Peter Lambert, and Rik Van de Walle. 2010. Accelerating Virtual Texturing Using CUDA. GPU Pro : advanced rendering techniques, pp. 623-641 (2010)