Patent ID: 8217957

Claim:
A system for generating and displaying a continuous texture environment based on mipmapped texture and photographic images, each mipmapped image having a plurality of mipmap level representations of a particular texture or photographic image, the system comprising: a delta value dataset configured to store a plurality of delta values for the texture images and photographic images, each delta value representing the difference between a child pixel in a first mipmap level and a parent sampling from a second mipmap level, wherein the first mipmap level is associated with a different coarseness than the second mipmap level; an absolute value dataset configured to store a plurality of absolute values for the photographic images to be displayed in the continuous texture environment; and an environment processor configured to generate the continuous texture environment including the texture images and the photographic images derived from the delta value dataset and the photographic images from the absolute value dataset; the environment processor including a blending processor configured to blend the photographic imagery and texture images to remove discontinuities using the delta values, wherein the plurality of delta values are determined and stored in the delta value dataset and the plurality of absolute values are determined and stored in the absolute value dataset prior to a runtime of the environment processor in which the environment processor is configured to generate the continuous texture environment, wherein the delta value dataset is configured to store delta values relating to each of the plurality of mipmap levels prior to the runtime of the environment processor, and wherein the absolute value dataset is configured to store absolute values for a subset of the mipmap levels and to exclude from storage absolute values for at least one higher-resolution mipmap level.