astcenc

astcenc is a command-line utility for compressing texture data using the ASTC (Adaptive Scalable Texture Compression) format. ASTC is a lossy compression scheme developed by ARM that offers significant advantages in terms of quality and flexibility compared to older texture compression methods. The astcenc tool allows developers to integrate ASTC compression into their asset pipelines, enabling smaller texture sizes and reduced memory bandwidth usage in graphics applications.

The tool supports various compression modes, including fast, medium, and thorough, each offering a trade-off between compression speed and the quality of the resulting compressed texture. It can also be configured to use different block sizes, which influence the compression ratio and performance characteristics. The output of astcenc is typically a .astc file or raw ASTC data that can be loaded by graphics APIs supporting the format, such as OpenGL ES 3.2, Vulkan, and Metal.

astcenc is particularly useful for mobile game development and other performance-critical applications where texture memory and bandwidth are often limiting factors. By leveraging ASTC, developers can achieve visual fidelity while maintaining efficient resource utilization. The command-line interface makes it easy to automate the compression process as part of build scripts or continuous integration systems.