SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR GENERATING PLANAR MAPS OF THREE-DIMENSIONAL SURFACES

Planar texture maps which reflect the distances and angles of a 3-D surface are generated. A user is permitted to manually adjust the balance between discontinuity and distortion. The user selectively modifies the 3-D surface, and by doing so adjusts the balance between discontinuity and distortion in the planar map. Each point on the 3-D surface corresponds to a unique point on the planar map. Operations may therefore be performed on the simpler 2-D planar map rather than the more complex 3-D map, and the result of the operations may be uniquely mapped to the 3-D surface. Further, the majority of the vertices on a 3-D surface are mapped automatically, even though the user maintains a high degree of control over the mapping process via altering the 3-D surface boundary. User-selected map vertices may be pinned to a user-selected location, and held fixed while a conventional relaxation technique is applied. This provides the user with a greater degree of control over the relaxation process.