Vulkan Texture Coordinate on the spec

Vulkan
1

Hi. I tried to find the specification on Vulkan Texture Coordinate.

I think the specification is not clear.

At first, I tried to look over the latest specification of Vulkan 1.1, here.
https://www.khronos.org/registry/vulkan/specs/1.1/html/vkspec.html#_image_operations_overview
Chapter 15.1 is “Image Operations Overview”, and it has 15.1.1 “Texel Coordinate System” part.

the spec said that

"
Normalized texel coordinates:

  • The s coordinate goes from 0.0 to 1.0.
  • The t coordinate goes from 0.0 to 1.0.

"

it does not specify the origin of the texture coordinate. I mean the direction of ‘s’ and ‘t’.
the graph in the part shows the arrow direction.

However, When I found the old specification of Vulkan
https://vulkan.lunarg.com/doc/view/1.0.37.0/linux/vkspec.chunked/ch15s01.html

it does specify the directions like :
"
Normalized texel coordinates:

  • The s coordinate goes from 0.0 to 1.0, left to right.
  • The t coordinate goes from 0.0 to 1.0, top to bottom.

"
and the graph shows the arrows of ‘t’ coordinate with the inverted direction compared to 1.1 spec.
So, This make me confused with texture coordinate.

I experimented my vulkan application to verify the texture coordinate by myself.
I found The result is the texture coordinate origin of the Vulkan is Top-left.
s coordinate goes from 0.0 to 1.0, left to right
t coordinate goes from 0.0 to 1.0, top to bottom.

the experiment consists of a simple offscreen rendering and swap chain buffer with screen quad.

I construct the positions and texture coordinate of the screen quad based on GL coordinates like:

float vertices[] =
{
	// positions  texCoords
	-1.0f,  1.0f, 0.0f, 1.0f,
	-1.0f, -1.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f,
	 1.0f,  1.0f, 1.0f, 1.0f,
	 1.0f, -1.0f, 1.0f, 0.0f,
};

uint16 indices[] =
{
	0, 1, 2,
	2, 1, 3
};

and the vulkan vertex shader is…

#version 310 es
precision mediump float;

// Screen Quad Vertex Shader

layout (location = 0) in vec2 a_Position;
layout (location = 1) in vec2 a_TexCoord;

layout (location = 0) out vec2 v_TexCoord;

void main()
{
	gl_Position = vec4(a_Position.x, a_Position.y, 0.0, 1.0);
	gl_Position.y = -gl_Position.y;
	gl_Position.z = (gl_Position.z + gl_Position.w) / 2.0;

	v_TexCoord = a_TexCoord;

    // When I comment out this line, the offscreen texture become upside down
	v_TexCoord.y = 1.0 - v_TexCoord.y; 
}

So, I have questions…:

  1. Is the texture coordinate which i found with my experiment right?
  2. If so, why does the spec 1.1 show upward ‘t’ coordinate direction?

I always appreciate the ones who help me…
Thanks!

2

IIRC it was rewriten in the spec, because I mean, which way is “up”?

It is obvious for a Monitor. But if you only have stream of bytes in the memory?
Coordinates simply go from 0 to width\height. There’s no left-right direction, there’s no up-down direction. I mean, does C++ array index go from “left to right”, or “right to left”? The question itself would not make sense.

1 Like
3

But that doesn’t explain the picture.

1 Like
4

The diagram uses scientific\math conventions?
It would be equally valid no matter which direction the axis span on the page, no?

1 Like
5

PS: I found the discussions if curious. Here goes: Vulkan-Docs#876

1 Like
6

Sorry for being late. I got the summer vacation.


My background on using Graphics API is based on OpenGL. And I learned that the OpenGL has Left-Bottom Texture Coordinate Origin. That’s the reason why I thought there would be a texture coordinate on Vulkan too. But after contemplating your advice, you’re right. Texture colors are just memories. Texture Coordinate also memories. I didn’t even think about the basic of texturing. and that made me confused with this topic.


Plus, Thank you for sharing the spec history!

7

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