1. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium including instructions that, when executed by a processor, perform the steps of: receiving a texture bind request from an application program, wherein the texture bind request includes an object identifier that identifies a first texture object stored in the texture memory and an image identifier that identifies a first image unit; binding the first texture object to the first image unit based on the texture bind request; receiving, within a shader engine, a first shading program command from the application program for performing a first memory access operation on the first texture object, wherein the first shading program command includes an image uniform variable that references the first image unit and has a first texture dimensionality, and wherein the memory access operation is a store operation or an atomic operation to an arbitrary location in the first image unit; and performing, within the shader engine, the first memory access operation on a texel included within the first texture object via the first image unit, wherein a format of coordinates of the texel is determined based on the first texture dimensionality.