Textures

The following section describes the available texture data sources. In Mitsuba 3, textures are objects that can be attached to certain surface scattering model parameters to introduce spatial variation. In the documentation, these are listed as supporting the texture type. See the last sections about BSDFs for many examples.

Textures take an (optional) <transform> called to_uv which can be used to translate, scale, or rotate the lookup into the texture accordingly.

An example in XML looks the following:

XMLPython

<scene version=3.0.0>
    <!-- Create a BSDF that supports textured parameters -->
    <bsdf type=".. BSDF type .." id="my_textured_material">
        <texture type=".. texture type .." name=".. parameter name ..">
            <!-- .. Texture parameters go here .. -->

            <transform name="to_uv">
                <!-- Scale texture by factor of 2 -->
                <scale x="2" y="2"/>
                <!-- Offset texture by [0.5, 1.0] -->
                <translate x="0.5" y="1.0"/>
            </transform>
        </texture>

        <!-- .. Non-spatially varying BSDF parameters ..-->
    </bsdf>
</scene>

Similar to BSDFs, named textures can alternatively defined at the top level of the scene and later referenced. This is particularly useful if the same texture would be loaded many times otherwise.

XMLPython

<scene version=3.0.0>
    <!-- Create a named texture at the top level -->
    <texture type=".. texture type .." id="my_named_texture">
        <!-- .. Texture parameters go here .. -->
    </texture>

    <!-- Create a BSDF that supports textured parameters -->
    <bsdf type=".. BSDF type ..">
        <!-- Example of referencing a named texture -->
        <ref id="my_named_texture" name=".. parameter name .."/>

        <!-- .. Non-spatially varying BSDF parameters ..-->
    </bsdf>
</scene>

Bitmap texture (bitmap)

Parameter	Type	Description	Flags
filename	string	Filename of the bitmap to be loaded
bitmap	Bitmap object	When creating a Bitmap texture at runtime, e.g. from Python or C++, an existing Bitmap image instance can be passed directly rather than loading it from the filesystem with filename.
data	tensor	Tensor array containing the texture data. Similarly to the bitmap parameter, this field can only be used at runtime. The raw parameter must also be set to true.	P, ∂
filter_type	string	Specifies how pixel values are interpolated and filtered when queried over larger UV regions. The following options are currently available: bilinear (default): perform bilinear interpolation, but no filtering. nearest: disable filtering and interpolation. In this mode, the plugin performs nearest neighbor lookups of texture values.
wrap_mode	string	Controls the behavior of texture evaluations that fall outside of the \([0, 1]\) range. The following options are currently available: repeat (default): tile the texture infinitely. mirror: mirror the texture along its boundaries. clamp: clamp coordinates to the edge of the texture.
format	string	Specifies the underlying texture storage format. The following options are currently available: auto (default): If loading a texture from a bitmap, use half precision for bitmap data with 16 or lower bit depth, otherwise use the native floating point representation of the Mitsuba variant. For variants using a spectral color representation this option is the same as variant. variant: Use the corresponding native floating point representation of the Mitsuba variant fp16: Forcibly store the texture in half precision
raw	boolean	Should the transformation to the stored color data (e.g. sRGB to linear, spectral upsampling) be disabled? You will want to enable this when working with bitmaps storing normal maps that use a linear encoding. (Default: false)
to_uv	transform	Specifies an optional 3x3 transformation matrix that will be applied to UV values. A 4x4 matrix can also be provided, in which case the extra row and column are ignored.	P
accel	boolean	Hardware acceleration features can be used in CUDA mode. These features can cause small differences as hardware interpolation methods typically have a loss of precision (not exactly 32-bit arithmetic). (Default: true)

This plugin provides a bitmap texture that performs interpolated lookups given a JPEG, PNG, OpenEXR, RGBE, TGA, or BMP input file.

When loading the plugin, the data is first converted into a usable color representation for the renderer:

• In rgb modes, sRGB textures are converted into a linear color space.

• In spectral modes, sRGB textures are spectrally upsampled to plausible smooth spectra [JH19] and stored an intermediate representation that enables efficient queries at render time.

• In monochrome modes, sRGB textures are converted to grayscale.

These conversions can alternatively be disabled with the raw flag, e.g. when textured data is already in linear space or does not represent colors at all.

XMLPython

<texture type="bitmap">
    <string name="filename" value="texture.png"/>
    <string name="wrap_mode" value="mirror"/>
</texture>

Checkerboard texture (checkerboard)

Parameter	Type	Description	Flags
color0, color1	spectrum or texture	Color values for the two differently-colored patches (Default: 0.4 and 0.2)	P, ∂
to_uv	transform	Specifies an optional 3x3 UV transformation matrix. A 4x4 matrix can also be provided. In that case, the last row and columns will be ignored. (Default: none)	P

This plugin provides a simple procedural checkerboard texture with customizable colors.

Checkerboard applied to the material test object as well as the ground plane.¶

XMLPython

<texture type="checkerboard">
    <rgb name="color0" value="0.1, 0.1, 0.1"/>
    <rgb name="color1" value="0.5, 0.5, 0.5"/>
</texture>

Mesh attribute texture (mesh_attribute)

Parameter	Type	Description	Flags
name	string	Name of the attribute to evaluate. It should always start with "vertex_" or "face_".
scale	float	Scaling factor applied to the interpolated attribute value during evaluation. (Default: 1.0)	P

This plugin provides a simple mechanism to expose Mesh attributes (e.g. vertex color) as a texture.

Bunny with random vertex color (using barycentric interpolation).¶

Bunny with random face color.¶

The following XML snippet describes a mesh with diffuse material, whose reflectance is specified using the vertex_color attribute of that mesh:

XMLPython

<shape type="ply">
    <string name="filename" value="my_mesh_with_vertex_color_attr.ply"/>

    <bsdf type="diffuse">
        <texture type="mesh_attribute" name="reflectance">
            <string name="name" value="vertex_color"/>
        </texture>
    </bsdf>
</shape>

Note

For spectral variants of the renderer (e.g. scalar_spectral), when a mesh attribute name contains the string "color", the tri-stimulus RGB values will be converted to rgb2spec model coefficients automatically.

Volumetric texture (volume)

Parameter	Type	Description	Flags
volume	float, spectrum or volume	Volumetric texture (Default: 0.75).	P, ∂

This plugin allows using a 3D texture (i.e. a volume plugin) to texture a 2D surface. This is intended to be used to texture surfaces without a meaningful UV parameterization (e.g., an implicit surface) or to apply procedural 3D textures. At a given point on a surface, the texture value will be determined by looking up the corresponding value in the referenced volume. This is done in world space and potentially requires using the volume’s to_world transformation to align the volume with the object using the texture.

XMLPython

<texture type="volume">
    <volume name="volume" type="gridvolume">
        <string name="filename" value="my_volume.vol"/>
    </volume>
</texture>