Image-Driven Procedural Texture Specification

In this paper we describe an approach to the automated specification of procedural textures to be used in rendering, based on representative samples. Procedural textures exhibit many advantages over traditional surface texturing techniques, but unfortunately finding the correct procedural texture and appropriate parameters to create the desired texture can be a daunting task for even the most experienced computer graphics artists. The method we propose here, which we refer to as image-based procedural texturing, allows the specification of the desired texture in the form of a digital input image. From this sample texture, a corresponding procedural texture is found which produces a texture which is perceptually similar to the input sample.