Generating own UV coords. How?

This is a general graphics question.

I want to generate my own UV texture coords
but don’t know where to get detailed info
or help. I know Sloane and Bier has written
a 1986 paper on this (2 part texture mapping)
but I don’t have access to that paper.

Can anyone lead me to more info. I’m
thinking of going into ray tracing territory
to generate them.

Thanks for any help in advance.

this may be good for a start
http://home.clara.net/paulyg/uv.htm

i’ve used this method a couple of times
with success on simple objects