opengl proamming guide chapter 6——Textures

the goal of computer graphics, generally speaking, is to determine the colors that make up each part of an image. while it is possible to calcualte the color of a pixel using an advanced shading algorithm, often the complexity of such a shader is so great that it is not practical to implement such approaches. instead, we rely on textures——large chunks of image data that can be used to paint the surfaces of objects to make them appear more realistic. this chapter discusses various approaches and techniques to apply textures using shaders in your application.

texture mapping
in the physical world, colors within our field of view can change rapidly. odds are you are reading this book inside of a building.