12.7. Tilable vs Non-Tilable Textures   

Tilable textures are those which can be mapped onto a surface repeatedly without a visible join. That is if 2 identical copies of a texture map are placed side by side, you should not be able to visually detect where one map finishes and the other begins.

Tilable textures can most easily be created by texture synthesis rather than digitizing, since the mathematical formula can be constructed to be identical, or continuous, at the end- points of the domain.

It is more difficult to make digitized textures tilable since natural textures rarely posses this quality. Techniques such as blurring the edges, where the end-point values are altered to more closely resemble the corresponding points, can be used.

               Some examples of Tilable textures

    


   
         Fig. 12.5 : A tilable image of a continent.

    


   
               Fig. 12.6 : Tilable paving

    


   
                 Fig. 12.7 : tiled earth

    


   
                Fig. 12.8 : tiled herring