Atlas generation algorithm based on triangular texture

Texture atlas is widely used to store surface textures in realistic rendering technique. A novel algorithm for automatic atlas generation is presented based on triangular texture. Each triangle is rotated until its longest edge is horizontal; Fast clustering method is recursively used to classify all the triangles into several groups so that the height of all the triangles of the same group are similar. The triangles of the same group are sorted according the slope of their left edges, and those with odd series number are rotated for 180 degrees. According the number of group and sequence, each triangular texture is packed into atlas one by one. Experimental results show that our algorithm has a very higher capacity rate comparing with any other similar algorithms, meanwhile the running time increases not obviously.