Abstract
Quadtree-based terrain visualization methods have been used in a lot of applications. However, because most procedures are performed on the CPU, the rendering speed is slow. In this paper, we present a quadtree-based terrain visualization method working on the GPU with specially designed data structure, the error-buffer and flag-buffer named ef-buffers. In pre-processing step, error metrics are computed in world space and the error metrics are transferred to the error-buffer. In rendering time, LOD selection and view-frustum culling are processed by evaluating the error metrics. The result is stored into the flag-buffer. To remove cracks or T-junction, the flag-buffer is refined. Then triangulation is performed using the flag-buffer. This method reduces CPU load and performs time consuming jobs such as LOD selection and view-frustum culling on the GPU. We can conclude that our method much faster than CPU-based rendering method without loss of image quality.
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Chang, HD., Shin, BS. (2006). Hardware Acceleration of Terrain Visualization Using ef-Buffers. In: Levi, A., Savaş, E., Yenigün, H., Balcısoy, S., Saygın, Y. (eds) Computer and Information Sciences – ISCIS 2006. ISCIS 2006. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 4263. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/11902140_35
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/11902140_35
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-47242-1
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