A new Texture Synthesis application is able to anylse small 2d textures.
It can generate 2d or 3d textures from the source image snipplet.
2D textures:
It generates a new textures, which looks the same as the original image. BUT: the new texture is of any size and tileable/repeatable.
No more photshop retouching to create a seamless texture. (No more stamping, still visible crossovers, brightness/hue difference between areas of the texture...)
3D textures:
This is the real power of this application. It tries to regenerate a 3d tileable texture from the source image.
3d volumetric textures don't need/require complex UV coordinate creation! (Anybody likes UV creation? Exspecially if you have something as you see below...)
Just texture them as you do it with every procedural shader, just with a spatial texture UVW support.
The resulting texture is not as similar to the source as the 2d texture generation, but you can generate many new textures, from similar looking to completely different structures.
The resulting look is something between a procedural textured and a "default" textured object.
And of course you can still combine default procedurals and multiple 3d textures to get a production look.
Very useful for objects with a complex structure, which you usally need to paint in a 3d paint application (using unique UV's).
Some test results (automatic spatial UVW only):
)
)
)
)
)