An Atlas-Packing Algorithm for Efficient Rendering of Arbitrarily Parametrized Decal Textures

When rendering large amounts of decals, huge overheads can considerably reduce performance, which is especially harmful for critical applications such as virtual reality. To reduce these overheads, we propose a novel algorithm packing arbitrarily parametrized decal textures into a sparse texture, which is realized via a reference atlas holding the necessary information to access tiles stored in a tile atlas. Due to an accelerating pre-processing step, the packing can be done in a considerable short amount of time. Furthermore, we present an approach for efficient rendering with this atlas, while simultaneously ensuring correct texture filtering. With the help of this architecture, a huge boost in performance is achieved, enabling broad hardware support.