HP Labs Technical Reports

Direct Calculation of MIP - Map Level for Faster Texture Mapping

Wu, Kevin

HPL-98-112

Keyword(s): computer graphics; texture mapping; MIP mapping; trilinear filtering; floating-point arithmetic

Abstract: This paper describes a method applicable to texture mapping for calculating the MIP-map level directly from the IEEE-standard floating-point representation of the compression value. This calculation ordinarily requires execution of a base-2 logarithm, and it needs to be performed once per pixel. However, the full logarithm need not be evaluated because only the integer part of the result is required. The MIP-map level is essentially the base-2 exponent of the MIP map compression value, and this exponent is immediately available from the IEEE-standard floating- point representation.

6 Pages

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