Color Distribution for Compression of Textural Data

Texture compression is recently one of the most important topics of 3D scene rendering because it allows visualization of more complicated high-resolution scenes. As standard image compression methods are not applicable to textures, an overview of specific techniques that are currently used in real 3D accelerators is presented. Because their major weakness is eventual image quality degradation, we introduce an approach that makes it possible to achieve superior image quality in most cases while providing higher compression ratios. Being an essential refining upon block decomposition strategy, it allows sharing the same color by several blocks, which partially solves the problem of colors deficit. We also describe some methods that can be used for conversion of textures to the proposed representation. Future prospects conclude the paper.