Relief mapping (computer graphics)

{{Short description|Texture mapping technique}}

In computer graphics, relief mapping is a texture mapping technique first introduced in 2000{{cite book|author=Oliveira, Manuel M. and Bishop, Gary and McAllister, David|title=Proceedings of the 27th annual conference on Computer graphics and interactive techniques - SIGGRAPH '00 |chapter=Relief texture mapping |year=2000|pages=359–368|doi=10.1145/344779.344947 |isbn=1581132085 |s2cid=598957 |chapter-url=https://doi.org/10.1145/344779.344947}} used to render the surface details of three-dimensional objects accurately and efficiently.{{cite book|author=Policarpo, F., Oliveira, M. M., Comba, J. L. D.|title=Proceedings of the 2005 symposium on Interactive 3D graphics and games |chapter=Real-time relief mapping on arbitrary polygonal surfaces |year=2005|pages=155–162|doi=10.1145/1053427.1053453 |isbn=1595930132 |s2cid=3445302 |chapter-url=http://www.inf.ufrgs.br/~comba/papers/2005/rtrm-i3d05.pdf}} It can produce accurate depictions of self-occlusion, self-shadowing, and parallax.{{cite book|author=Policarpo, F., Oliveira, M. M.|title=Proceedings of the 2006 symposium on Interactive 3D graphics and games - SI3D '06 |chapter=Relief mapping of non-height-field surface details |year=2006|page=55 |doi=10.1145/1111411.1111422 |isbn=159593295X |s2cid=11331719 |chapter-url=http://www.inf.ufrgs.br/~oliveira/pubs_files/Policarpo_Oliveira_RTM_multilayer_I3D2006.pdf|accessdate=18 February 2011}} It is a form of short-distance ray tracing done in a pixel shader.{{citation needed|date=February 2011}} Relief mapping is highly comparable in both function and approach to another displacement texture mapping technique, Parallax occlusion mapping, considering that they both rely on ray tracing, though the two are not to be confused with each other, as parallax occlusion mapping uses reverse heightmap tracing.