VAPOR normally provides a reasonable, but conservative, default graphics texture size. However in some cases the default size is too small (resulting in poor performance). This parameter, when set, represents the side of the largest cube that will be rendered from the GPU texture memory. Volumes whose dimensions exceed the graphics texture size are decomposed into bricks whose dimensions are guaranteed not to exceed the specified graphics texture size. Each brick is download to the graphics device and rendered one at a time. While this virualization of texture memory allows volume that are larger than the physical memory of the graphics device to be rendered with the DVR or Iso renderers, a performance penalty is paid. This performance problem may be resolved by setting this texture size parameter to a value large enough to avoid texture bricking. Unfortunately, the maximum texture size is typically only knowable by reading the manufacturers specification for the device. Experimentation may be required.
