Topic summary
Mipmapping

Extracted from the Wikipedia article Mipmap.
History
Mipmapping was invented by Lance Williams in 1983 and is described in his paper Pyramidal parametrics. From the abstract: "This paper advances a 'pyramidal parametric' prefiltering and sampling geometry which minimizes aliasing effects and assures continuity within and between target images." The referenced pyramid can be imagined as the set of mipmaps stacked in front of each other.