mipmapped

Mipmapped describes textures that include a mipmap chain, a series of prefiltered, progressively smaller versions of the original image. A mipmapped texture contains multiple levels: level 0 at full resolution, and subsequent levels downsampled by roughly a factor of two in each dimension, typically down to 1x1. During rendering, the graphics pipeline selects the appropriate level based on the projected size of the texture on screen, allowing sampling from a smaller, better-matched image when the texture appears distant or small.

The use of mipmaps improves both visual quality and performance. By sampling from a level that corresponds to the texel footprint, aliasing is reduced and memory bandwidth and cache usage are more efficient. This level selection is usually performed automatically by the texture sampler, which may also use filtering to blend between adjacent mipmap levels for smoother results.

Mipmapped textures are commonly used with filtering methods such as bilinear, trilinear, and anisotropic filtering. Nearest-neighbor sampling on a full-resolution texture can lead to heavy aliasing, while mipmaps help maintain detail without excessive shimmering. The main drawbacks are the additional memory required to store all mipmap levels and the preprocessing or generation time needed to create the levels, which can be done offline or at texture load time.

In modern graphics, mipmapping is a standard feature supported by virtually all GPUs and graphics APIs. Textures that are designed or stored with mipmaps are described as mipmapped, and samplers are often configured to take advantage of the mipmap chain to achieve improved image quality and rendering efficiency.