will adjust and optimize it to minimize seams and overlaps. If the model is symmetric, the artist might overlap opposite triangles to allow painting both sides simultaneously. UV coordinates are optionally applied per face. This means a shared spatial vertex position can have different UV coordinates for each of its triangles, so adjacent triangles can be cut apart and positioned on different areas of the texture map. The UV mapping process at its simplest requires three steps: unwrapping the mesh, creating the texture, and applying the texture to a respective face of polygon. UV mapping may use repeating textures, or an injective 'unique' mapping as a prerequisite for baking. Finding UV on a sphere For any point on the sphere, calculate , that being the unit vector from to the sphere's origin. Assuming that the sphere's poles are aligned with the Y axis, UV coordinates in the range can then be calculated as follows: See also Cartographic projection Geodesic Least squares conformal map Mesh parameterization NURBS Polygon mesh Radon transformation Lightmap Digital sculpting References External links LSCM Mapping image with Blender Blender UV Mapping Tutorial with Blender Example of UV mapping). UV Checker Map Maker Texture mapping