Engine for streaming virtual textures

An apparatus comprising:

• an application having processor readable instructions;
• at least one processor that executes the processor readable instructions to render a computer generated image using a texture image having a plurality of sub-images;
• at least one processor readable memory that stores compressed data representing texture of at least a first sub-image in the plurality of sub-images;
• an engine that receives at least one command to decompress the compressed data representing texture and stores the decompressed data representing texture in the at least one processor readable memory so that the at least one processor uses the decompressed data representing texture to update the first sub-image in the plurality of sub-images.

At least one processor readable memory having instructions encoded thereon which when executed cause at least one processor to perform a method for decompressing compressed texture data, the method comprising:

• allocating memory for a texture;
• determining an area of a sub-image of the texture;
• determining a level of detail of the sub-image of the texture;
• identify a memory location of a compressed texture data having the level of detail of the sub-image of the texture;
• and
• transferring at least one command to an engine to decompress the compressed texture data at the memory location so that decompressed texture data may be used to update the sub-image of the texture that is used to render a computer generated image.