The Texture-Map Song

This song is all about the art of texture-mapping in computer graphics. It's supposed to make things look more realistic on the screen. For example, you can "wrap" a picture of wood-grain around a 3D object to make it look like it's made of wood. It kind of works.

I wrote this song when I was on a course in computer graphics.

Note: "Visualize" is a Hewlett-Packard graphics card.

If you want have your face wrapped 'round a brick,
And you want your piece of wood to look realistic;
If you want to know the way to perform this little trick
Then you texture-map it, you texture-map it.

If your house don't look real 'cos the walls are too flat,
Or your cat ain't gonna sit on your textureless mat;
If you think Harris tweed would look good on your hat
Then you texture-map it, you texture-map it.

Map your face into texture space,
Project your nose where the image goes;
Cast your eyes using Visualize,
And your polygons and splines will take on familiar lines -
That's the method, as any one knows!

When you need to fill a field with a carpet of herbs,
When a concrete kind of style is just right for your curbs;
When a photograph of me would look good on your NURBS,
Then you texture-map it, you texture-map it.

Perhaps you must convert the file that you read,
And your texels may not be quite the size that you need,
But it's all sorted out by the MIPMAP pyramid
When you texture map it, you texture map it.