<p>It stands for texture coordinate.</p>

<p>It's a 2D value between 0 and 1 to indicate where in the texture to sample from for the color.</p>

<p>For sphere that means creating a map projection to map the curved surface to the flat plane, a simple option is to use the lat/long remapped to 0-1 though that gives awful distortion at the poles.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-03-16T06:40:49.887Z
But it's required only if one maps a texture to the object?
mavavilj
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-03-19T15:20:16.160Z
@mavavilj yes texture coordinates are not relevant if you are not using textures.
trichoplax is on Codidact now
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-03-15T17:10:12.380Z
2017-03-15T17:10:12.380Z
ratchet freak
<p>So I'm reading some Ray-Sphere interaction codes and in one there was "texCoord", which I think means "texel coordinate". However, what does this refer to "visually"?</p>

<raytracing>
What's a "texel coordinate"?
mavavilj
# What's a "texel coordinate"?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2017-03-15)

So I'm reading some Ray-Sphere interaction codes and in one there was "texCoord", which I think means "texel coordinate". However, what does this refer to "visually"?

**Tags:** raytracing


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## 1 answers

### Answer by username_1 on 2017-03-15. Score: 4

It stands for texture coordinate.

It's a 2D value between 0 and 1 to indicate where in the texture to sample from for the color.

For sphere that means creating a map projection to map the curved surface to the flat plane, a simple option is to use the lat/long remapped to 0-1 though that gives awful distortion at the poles.

> **Comments:**
> **username_0**: But it's required only if one maps a texture to the object?  
> **username_2**: @username_0 yes texture coordinates are not relevant if you are not using textures.  

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