Abstract: A method and apparatus for compressing and decompressing texture patterns using a predefined two or more stage codebook with stored texture block vectors. The method of compressing includes selecting a texture block in the uncompressed texture pattern and determining a distortion value of the selected texture block as compared to a texture block vector stored in the two or more stage codebook. The distortion determination is repeated for a different texture block stored in the two or more stage codebook, until the determined distortion value is the smallest for all texture block vectors stored in the two or more stage codebook. The indices of the stored texture block in the two or more stage codebook are retrieved and stored. The retrieved indices are stored in an index block within an index map, wherein the index blocks correspond to texture blocks in the texture pattern. The two or more stage codebook is generated from a representative texture pattern.