US Patent 7365744 Methods and systems for image modification

A method of the invention includes the steps of selecting at least a portion of an image on which to superimpose a texture and segmenting that portion of the image into a plurality of clusters. Each of the clusters is then parameterized with texture coordinates, and texture is assigned to each of the clusters using the texture coordinates to result in a texture patch. The texture patches are then blended together. This exemplary method of the invention has the result of the texture patches appearing to adopt the surface undulations of the underlying surface.