Wavelets in 3D Graphics: A Memory-Saving Trick for Textures

Wavelets are a hot topic in computer graphics for multiresolution analysis and compression. I focus on the Haar wavelet basis to compress low-contrast textures in a 3D polygonal game engine I'm developing. The problem: a typical 256x256 texture takes 256KB, and a scene with dozens of textures can exceed 200MB. I use nonstandard decomposition to reconstruct mipmaps incrementally, avoiding stutter and maintaining a steady 25 FPS.