Alternation of Levels-of-Detail Construction and Occlusion Culling for Terrain Rendering

Abstract

Terrain data set is essential for many 3D computer graphics applications. This paper presents a general framework for real-time terrain walk-through application, where the LOD(levels of detail) construction and occlusion culling are alternately selected depending on the terrain geometry. For highly occluded areas, only the occlusion culling is enabled. For less occluded areas, only the LOD rendering is enabled. A small piece of pre-computed information helps the renderer alternate the two methods. The experiment results demonstrate significant savings in rendering time. © Springer-Verlag 2004.