Geometric Textures are a category of textures used to generate geometric patterns that can be used by themselves or in combination with the Mapping and Color textures to create surface effects. The patterns they produce are the result of geometric algorithms. This is a very memory efficient way to generate geometric patterns as the calculations require less memory than loading bitmap images. These are also used to create bump maps and other advanced materials with minimal impact to GPU memory. It is therefore advantageous to explore creating materials using these textures before resorting to image based textures.