uvhandlet

uvhandlet is a lightweight software library designed to manage UV texture coordinates within 3D graphics workflows. It provides a set of utilities for manipulating and querying UV data, enabling consistent texture mapping across models, materials, and rendering backends. The project aims to decouple UV handling from specific rendering engines to improve portability and reproducibility in asset pipelines.

Key features include support for multiple UV sets per mesh, coordinate transforms in UV space (offset, scale, rotation), wrap modes (repeat, clamp, mirror), tiling and offset animation, and atlas support to pack multiple textures into one. It also offers utilities to validate UVs, detect overlaps, and export transformed UV data to common formats. The library is designed to integrate with tooling and engines through language bindings, commonly including C++ and Python interfaces.

Architecture and data model are centered on modularity and portability. The core library provides data types such as UV, UVSet, and Transform2D, with a focus on immutability and deterministic results. The design emphasizes minimal dependencies and thread-safe operation to fit into diverse pipelines, from offline asset processing to real-time rendering workflows. It seeks to be compatible with standard texture coordinate conventions used across OpenGL, DirectX, and Vulkan, and to support UDIM workflows and texture atlases.

Usage and ecosystem approaches vary. uvhandlet is intended for use in asset pipelines, modeling tools, exporters, and game or rendering engines, providing a common layer for UV data management that can adapt to different backends. While not tied to a single platform, it aligns with common practices in UV mapping and texture sampling.

See also: UV mapping, texture atlas, wrap mode, UDIM, texture coordinate.