point sampling

(crystallography) Any pair of atoms in a crystal lattice which are as close to each other, or closer to each other, than any other pair.

Also called "nearest neighbor," it is the simplest form of texture mapping, which is often associated with low-end games and applications that do not demand much realism. An algorithm is used to map a screen pixel to the corresponding point on the texture map. The attributes (color, alpha, etc.) of the nearest texel are then directly applied to the screen pixel. The process is repeated for each pixel forming the object being textured. See texture map, bilinear interpolation, trilinear interpolation and MIP mapping.

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