PixelTexture Node

This node specifies the location of the image to be used for texturing the shape, as well as if the image is to be repeated vertically, or horizontally, along each of the faces of the shape.

Three fields are present in this node:

image which defines the image using pixels.

repeatS which specifies if the image is to be repeated vertically.

repeatT which specifies if the image is to be repeated horizontally.

The first three values of the image field define the width of the image (in pixels), the height of the image (in pixels), and the number of bytes used for each pixel. Possible values for the number of bytes are:

1: Grayscale

2: Grayscale with alpha channel for transparency

3: RGB

4: RGB with alpha channel for transparency

All fields are optional, the default values being applied if the field is not specified. Note: if you do not specify the image field, then no texturing takes place.

Specifying an image pixel by pixel may seem like hard work, however some interesting effects can be achieved with little effort. For example see the following PixelTexture node:

PixelTexture { image 2 1 1 0 255}

Note that the color values for the PixelTexture node range from 0 to 255, as opposed to 0 to 1 as in the VRML color model used for all the other nodes.

This node specifies an image with two pixels wide, 1 pixel tall, the first pixel is black, and the second is white. If this image is applied as a texture to a face then, because the image is scaled to fit the face, a gradient should be displayed starting from black on the left side and progressively turning to white as the right side is reached (note: some browsers do not yet implement this feature and instead will produce a two color image, the left half black and the right half white).

This node can also be used to create patterns, although a pattern editor is probably the best option for this task.

Syntax:

PixelTexture {

image 0 0 0

repeatS TRUE

repeatT TRUE

}

Note: for the example on the right the image will be repeated twice in each direction if the values for repeatS and repeatT are set ot TRUE. See the node TextureTransform to see how to set the repetition rate.