TL;DR: The concept of "solid texture" to the field of CGI is introduced and used to create very convincing representations of clouds, fire, water, stars, marble, wood, rock, soap films and crystal.
Abstract: We introduce the concept of a Pixel Stream Editor. This forms the basis for an interactive synthesizer for designing highly realistic Computer Generated Imagery. The designer works in an interactive Very High Level programming environment which provides a very fast concept/implement/view iteration cycle.Naturalistic visual complexity is built up by composition of non-linear functions, as opposed to the more conventional texture mapping or growth model algorithms. Powerful primitives are included for creating controlled stochastic effects. We introduce the concept of "solid texture" to the field of CGI.We have used this system to create very convincing representations of clouds, fire, water, stars, marble, wood, rock, soap films and crystal. The algorithms created with this paradigm are generally extremely fast, highly realistic, and asynchronously parallelizable at the pixel level.
TL;DR: The paper gives examples of solid texture functions based on Fourier synthesis, stochastic texture models, projections of two-dimensional textures, and combinations of other solid textures.
Abstract: Texturing is an effective method of simulating surface detail at relatively low cost. Traditionally, texture functions have been defined on the two-dimensional surface coordinate systems of individual surface patches. This paper introduces the notion of "solid texturing". Solid texturing uses texture functions defined throughout a region of three-dimensional space. Many nonhomogeneous materials, including wood and stone, may be more realistically rendered using solid texture functions. In addition, solid texturing can easily be applied to complex surface which are difficult to texture using two-dimensional texture functions. The paper gives examples of solid texture functions based on Fourier synthesis, stochastic texture models, projections of two-dimensional textures, and combinations of other solid textures.