Patent ID: 7889209

Claim:
A method for wrapping a texture onto a surface of a three-dimensional virtual object, the method comprising: (i) rendering an arbitrarily-shaped-region of the surface of the three-dimensional virtual object in response to a user manipulation of a graphical user interface device; (ii) defining a first patch over the user-defined region, the patch being a NURBS patch; (iii) for each of a plurality of locations in the user-defined region, mapping the location to a corresponding location in a texture according to a mapping scheme wherein points of a planar mesh are adjusted to account for a spacing of corresponding points within the first patch, and wherein the texture is superimposed onto a second patch based on the adjusted planar mesh; and (iv) assigning to each location in the arbitrarily-shaped, user-defined region a graphical value associated with the corresponding location in the texture, wherein the points of the planar mesh are adjusted to improve a quality metric associated with the spacing of corresponding points within the first patch, wherein the mapping scheme models at least a plurality of the points of the planar mesh as connected by mechanical modeling elements, and wherein the points of the planar mesh are adjusted to reduce an energy associated with the mechanical modeling elements.