Abstract: A system and method for adding vector textures to images may employ a unified vector representation for images and textures based on extensions to diffusion curve representations, along with tools to facilitate the draping of texture maps over an image. This vector representation may support user-configurable parameters that allow artists to design and manipulate complex textures at a high-level, and to deform them directly in two-dimensional images. The vector representation may provide material descriptors and visual cues of three-dimensional shape in two-dimensional images. It may facilitate the creation of lighting and shading effects in such images. The system may include tools to manipulate the configurable parameters to create texels, to distribute texels in a texture map, to automatically generate new texture elements, to generate 2.5D surface approximations of two-dimensional images based on diffusible normal attributes, and/or to apply a texture by mapping or projecting it onto such 2.