Design Nomenclature / Digital Model Making
Texel Density
Also called texel ratio, pixels per unit, TD
This entry has not been translated yet and is shown in English.
Texture pixels per unit of surface, quoted as px/cm or px/m. It is the one thing that makes texture resolution consistent across an asset: two objects at the same density read as the same material; at different densities they read as different budgets. Set it as a project standard, not per model.
Not to be confused with
- PPIImage samples per inch at a stated reproduction size, or the physical pixel pitch of a display. It describes a relationship between a file and an output, never the file alone: a 300 ppi image is 300 ppi only at the size it was specified for. Print it twice as wide and it is 150.
- ResolutionAmbiguous by use. The word names pixel dimensions (4096 by 4096), sampling density (300 ppi), and sometimes an output size in inches — three different quantities, of which any two determine the third. An image has no physical size until a density is chosen, so “high resolution” is not a property of a file.
Origin
Texel is texture element, formed on pixel from picture element. The coinage carries the whole idea — a texture is a sampled grid, and a texel has a real-world size once it lands on a surface.