Using mesh shaders for continuous level-of-detail terrain rendering

Abstract

Using a commercial terrain engine [Englert 2012] as an example, we discuss both advantages and disadvantages of the continuous level-of-detail approach [Lindstrom and Pascucci 2001] to terrain-rendering while comparing our implementation with other hybrid [Dick et al. 2010] and implicit [Jad Khoury and Riccio 2018] approaches. We show how mesh shader and inline ray-tracing features of DirectX 12 Ultimate can be used to remedy those disadvantages.