Web/API/WEBGL compressed texture pvrtc

The WEBGL_compressed_texture_pvrtc extension is part of the WebGL API and exposes four PVRTC compressed texture formats.

Compressed textures reduce the amount of memory needed to store a texture on the GPU, allowing for higher resolution textures or more of the same resolution textures.

WebGL extensions are available using the WebGLRenderingContext.getExtension() method. For more information, see also Using Extensions in the WebGL tutorial.

Availability: PVRTC is typically only available on mobile devices with PowerVR chipsets. It is used in all generations of the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad and supported on certain Android devices that use a PowerVR GPU.

This extension is available to both, WebGL1 and WebGL2 contexts.

Note: On iOS devices, this extension is named WEBKIT_WEBGL_compressed_texture_pvrtc.

Constants

The compressed texture formats are exposed by four constants and can be used in two functions: compressedTexImage2D() (where the height and width parameters must be powers of 2) and compressedTexSubImage2D() (where the the height and width parameters must equal the current values of the existing texture and the xoffset and yoffset parameters must be 0).

ext.COMPRESSED_RGB_PVRTC_4BPPV1_IMG: RGB compression in 4-bit mode. One block for each 4×4 pixels.
ext.COMPRESSED_RGBA_PVRTC_4BPPV1_IMG: RGBA compression in 4-bit mode. One block for each 4×4 pixels.
ext.COMPRESSED_RGB_PVRTC_2BPPV1_IMG: RGB compression in 2-bit mode. One block for each 8×4 pixels.
ext.COMPRESSED_RGBA_PVRTC_2BPPV1_IMG: RGBA compression in 2-bit mode. One block for each 8×4 pixels.

Examples

var ext = gl.getExtension('WEBGL_compressed_texture_pvrtc');

var texture = gl.createTexture();
gl.bindTexture(gl.TEXTURE_2D, texture);

gl.compressedTexImage2D(gl.TEXTURE_2D, 0, ext.COMPRESSED_RGB_PVRTC_4BPPV1_IMG, 512, 512, 0, textureData);

Specifications

Specification	Status	Comment
WEBGL_compressed_texture_pvrtcThe definition of 'WEBGL_compressed_texture_pvrtc' in that specification.	Draft	Initial definition.

Browser compatibility

The compatibility table in this page is generated from structured data. If you'd like to contribute to the data, please check out https://github.com/mdn/browser-compat-data and send us a pull request.

Update compatibility data on GitHub

	Desktop						Mobile
	Chrome	Edge	Firefox	Internet Explorer	Opera	Safari	Android webview	Chrome for Android	Firefox for Android	Opera for Android	Safari on iOS	Samsung Internet
`WEBGL_compressed_texture_pvrtc`	Chrome Full support Yes	Edge Full support 79	Firefox Full support 18 Full support 18 No support ? — 58 Prefixed' Prefixed' Implemented with the vendor prefix: MOZ_	IE ?	Opera Full support Yes	Safari ?	WebView Android Full support Yes	Chrome Android Full support Yes	Firefox Android ?	Opera Android Full support Yes	Safari iOS ?	Samsung Internet Android Full support Yes

Legend

Full support: Full support
Compatibility unknown: Compatibility unknown
Requires a vendor prefix or different name for use.': Requires a vendor prefix or different name for use.