what does the U stand for in UV mapping?
 

Hi there,
I looked through the manuals and through Inside Lightwave, but haven't been able to figure that out.
"V" I guess stands for Vertex.
thanks

I may be wrong, but I think it doesn't stand for anything.

XYZ are cardinal directions, so they wanted to do the same with texture space. The powers-that-be dubbed those directions UVW to not confuse the two.

That's what I think, anyway.

So, UVs could have very well been called ABs if they decided to go the other way. :)

Mike,
did a good job to confuse me though ;-)
I was guessing UltraViolet, UpperVertex, UltraVoxel ... I love abreviations ...
thanks

Mike is entirely correct. They're just another set of axes in 3D space...

not entirely precise though;

XYZ is your world coordintae system, while UVW is a transformed coordinate system (also used in maths), in this case it's your "tangent space" coordinate system, transformed in a way that U and V actually make up the surface of your object so W would be your surface normals.