bump mapping

English

A sphere without bump mapping (left); a bump map to be applied (middle); and the sphere after bump mapping (right).

Noun

bump mapping (uncountable)

1. (computer graphics) A technique where a perturbation to the surface normal of the object being rendered is applied to each pixel, based on a texture map, prior to calculating the illumination, so as to produce a richer, more detailed surface representation.

Derived terms

• bump-mapped