Bilinear Filtering

Bilinear filtering is a method of texture filtering used in computer graphic design to smooth out textures when objects shown on the screen are larger or smaller than they actually are in texture memory. Textured shapes that are drawn on the screen either smaller or larger than they are supposed to be often become distorted. Regular texture mapping will make the picture look pixilated or blocky. Bilinear filtering prevents this by interpolating the points that are between texels (texture elements) and assuming that they are points in the middle of their respective cells. These points are used to perform bilinear interpolation, a mathematical process, between the four nearest texels to the point a given pixel represents in order to make a relatively accurate guess of the pixel color to be added.