Abstract: The use of stochastic texture for the visualization of scalar and vector fields over surfaces is discussed. Current techniques for texture synthesis are not suitable, because they do not provide local control, and are not suited for the design of textures. A new technique, spot noise, is presented that does provide these features. Spot noise is synthesized by addition of randomly weighted and positioned spots. Local control of the texture is realized by variation of the spot. The spot is a useful primitive for texture design, because, in general, the relations between features of the spot and features of the texture are straightforward. Various examples and applications are shown. Spot noise lends itself well for the synthesis of texture over curved surfaces, and is therefore an alternative to solid texturing. The relations of spot noise with a variety of other techniques, such as radom faults, filtering, sparse convolution, and particle systems, are discussed. It appears that spot noise provides a new perspective on those techniques.