texture mapping

Texture mapping is the idea of mapping a pixelmap onto a polygon face, thus creating a more ``realistic'' look than just a solid color fill. There are a number of methods for texture mapping, each with their different tradeoffs. A good starting point for information about 3D graphics and texture mapping are Michael Abrash's books.

Texture Mapping is basically a 3d to 2d conversion. Say you have a polygon with three points, you have a texture with three points on it (different points), you interpolate between the points on the screen and the points on the texture, and presto, you have a texture mapped polygon.

check out Perspective corrected texture mapping

Michael Abrash's books show you how to do texture mapping, but thats not REALLY necessary, cause you could just use Direct X in Windows.