Using a hierarchical organization of a texture atlas to render visible image portions

Abstract

In one embodiment, a method includes a step of receiving a geometric representation of a virtual object and a texture atlas, the geometric representation comprising multiple geometric primitives defining a shape of the virtual object, the texture atlas comprises regions each of which is allocated to include shading information of a respective geometric primitive of the plurality of geometric primitives, and the shading information of the respective geometric primitive being scaled down to be smaller than the allocated region so as to create a buffer between the allocated region and adjacent regions of the plurality of regions on the texture atlas. The method further includes steps of identifying, based on a first viewpoint from which to view the virtual object, visible geometric primitives from the plurality of geometric primitives and rendering images of the visible geometric primitives using corresponding shading information included in the texture atlas.