UV mapping

UV mapping is the geometrical modeling process of producing a 2D image which represents a 3D model.

UV mapping

The UV coordinate system is used in the texturing of objects polygon, wherein U and V describe the texture coordinates. Each point of the polygon object gets assigned a clear texture position. When the values ​​of x and y values ​​for the position of the polygon are used, a distorted texture can be uniquely positioned only by deviating UV coordinates.

UV texturing allows the user to polygons that represent a 3D model to texture with an image. This image is called UV texture map, but it's really just a simple image.

In the right example a sphere with a checkered texture is provided, first without and then with UV mapping. Without UV mapping the checkered tiling and texture are cut out of the sphere. With UV mapping of the UV space and the UV points on the tile is applied according to their longitude and latitude.

When a model is created with a 3D graphics software as mesh, the UV coordinates for each vertex can be created in the network. When the scene is rendered, each polygon is assigned to the appropriate texture.

A UV map can either be created by software manually by the artist or by a combination of both methods. Often a UV map is automatically generated and the artist adjusted to minimize the number of overlaps and gaps. If the model is symmetric, the artist can opposite polygons on top of each other to texture both sides simultaneously.

UV coordinates are applied on faces, not per vertex. This means that a shared vertex may have various UV coordinates in each of its three corner so that adjacent triangles can be cut and positioned at various points in the texture map.

UV mapping process in its simplest form requires at least three steps of: folding the mesh, creating the texture, and the use of the texture.

Search by UV on a sphere

UV coordinates representing a projection of the space vectors on the xy surface.