T

tearing

A visual artifact produced when the screen refresh rate is out of sync with an application's frame rate. The top portion of one frame is displayed at the same time as the bottom portion of another frame, with a discernible tear between the two partial images.

texel

A single element in a texture. When a texture has been applied to an object, the texels rarely correspond to pixels on the screen. Applications can use texture filtering to control how texels are interpolated to pixels.

texture

A rectangular array of pixels that is applied to a visual object in Direct3D.

texture blending

The technique of combining the colors of a texture with the colors of the surface to which the texture is applied.

texture coordinates

The coordinates that determine which texel in each texture is assigned to each vertex in an object.

texture mapping

The application of a texture to an object. Because a texture is a flat image and the object is often not, the texture must be mapped to the surface of the object, using texture coordinates and wrapping flags. See also texture coordinates and wrap.