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mipmap
A stack of pre-computed, progressively smaller copies of a texture image.
Along with the original texture, the GPU stores it at half size, quarter size, and so on down to a single pixel. When a surface is far away or shrunk on screen, the renderer samples from a smaller copy instead of the full image, which avoids shimmering and speeds up sampling. Picking the right level for a given distance is the LOD (level-of-detail) decision.
See also
- mip / LODChoosing which pre-shrunk version of a texture to use based on how far away a surface is.
- mipmap / LODPre-shrunk texture copies (mipmaps) plus the rule that picks which one to sample (LOD).
- MSAAAn anti-aliasing technique that smooths jagged edges by sampling each pixel at several points.