actually, the texture is the skin off a xyz model, in three dimensions. Hence xyz representing the model. I think this is a common problem when people are uvmapping, they are thinking in a 'euclidean' way, in two dimensions, instead of grasping three and trying to make them two in order to make a texture uvmap. When I am uvmapping, I am literally creating a 2d surface that wraps on a 3d object... Hope that explains my viewpoint some. Automating the process would be the same situation, placing 2d surface coordinate data (u and v directions on the surface, or xy as a texture map) onto a 3d surface... xyz For example, when I was uvmapping the mayadoll's lips. Parts of the lips fold inward to the mouth, and even though on my uvmap they seem flat, the texture actually curves inward and overlaps behind other vertices that are in a similar xy plane, but not the same z plane. (some are behind, some are in front) These vertices had to be spread out, and flattened onto an xy plane, so you can texture them. Automating a uvmapping conversion I imagine would be difficult... because you have to take the uv coordinates from one three dimensional model and translate it to the uv coordinates of another 3d model, that usually has very different geometry (vertices and polygons won't line up exactly).