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Concept
Mipmap
Summary
In computer graphics, mipmaps (also MIP maps) or pyramids are pre-calculated, optimized sequences of , each of which is a progressively lower representation of the previous. The height and width of each image, or level, in the mipmap is a factor of two smaller than the previous level. Mipmaps do not have to be square. They are intended to increase rendering speed and reduce aliasing artifacts. A high-resolution mipmap image is used for high-density samples, such as for objects close to the camera; lower-resolution images are used as the object appears farther away. This is a more efficient way of downfiltering (minifying) a texture than sampling all texels in the original texture that would contribute to a screen pixel; it is faster to take a constant number of samples from the appropriately downfiltered textures. Mipmaps are widely used in 3D computer games, flight simulators, other 3D imaging systems for texture filtering, and 2D and 3D GIS software. Their use is known as mipmapping. The letters MIP in the name are an acronym of the Latin phrase multum in parvo, meaning "much in little".
Since mipmaps, by definition, are pre-allocated, additional storage space is required to take advantage of them. They are also related to wavelet compression. Mipmap textures are used in 3D scenes to decrease the time required to render a scene. They also improve by reducing aliasing and Moiré patterns that occur at large viewing distances, at the cost of 33% more memory per texture.
Mipmaps are used for:
Level of detail (LOD)
Improving image quality. Rendering from large textures where only small, discontiguous subsets of texels are used can easily produce Moiré patterns;
Speeding up rendering times, either by reducing the number of texels sampled to render each pixel, or increasing the memory locality of the samples taken;
Reducing stress on the GPU or CPU.
Water surface reflections
Mipmapping was invented by Lance Williams in 1983 and is described in his paper Pyramidal parametrics.
Official source
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