Editorial: Special Issue on “Texture Analysis and Synthesi”

The motivation for this special issue is twofold. Firstly we wished to provide an issue that combines papers on texture analysis with papers on texture synthesis. By analysis we mean the processing of images of texture to produce a set of measurements. These measurements could concern: statistics such as average surface roughness or directionality; the class of texture to which the surface belongs; or the mapping of the surface into different regions using segmentation algorithms. By synthesis we mean the generation of descriptions or images of surface texture for computer graphics applications. Typical examples concern the generation of large areas of surface texture that are perceptually identical to the small samples from which they have been generated. Secondly we wanted to provide a showcase for recent research on three-dimensional surface texture. Critically the images of such surfaces are not purely a function of the colour albedo pattern. Rather, spatial variation of relief and reflectance mean that shadows, highlights and occlusion all affect the resulting imagery. Thus images are a function of viewpoint and illumination condition as well as surface texture—and so texture synthesis and analysis must take these effects into account. These issues are timely also when considered in the wider context of image-based rendering, of which texture mapping in a way was a precursor. This active field is a good example of the confluence of computer vision and graphics. This issue is organised into three sections. The first set of papers does not specifically address either analysis or synthesis as defined above but may be used for either. The first two of these papers propose and experimentally validate two different models of texture, while the third paper exploits shading and shadowing in surface reconstruction. The next three papers are all concerned with the classification of three-dimensional surface textures while the last four address texture synthesis issues.