J. Edward Swan II

LOD-Sprite Technique for Accelerated Terrain Rendering

Baoquan Chen, J. Edward Swan II, Eddy Kuo, and Arie Kaufman. LOD-Sprite Technique for Accelerated Terrain Rendering. In Proceedings of IEEE Visualization '99, pp. 291–298, IEEE Computer Society Press, October 1999.

Download

[PDF] 

Abstract

We present a new rendering technique, termed LOD-sprite rendering, which uses a combination of a level-of-detail (LOD) representation of the scene together with reusing image sprites (previously rendered images). Our primary application is accelerating terrain rendering. The LOD-sprite technique renders an initial frame using a high-resolution model of the scene geometry. It renders subsequent frames with a much lower-resolution model of the scene geometry and texture-maps each polygon with the image sprite from the initial high-resolution frame. As it renders these subsequent frames the technique measures the error associated with the divergence of the view position from the position where the initial frame was rendered. Once this error exceeds a user-defined threshold, the technique re-renders the scene from the high-resolution model. We have efficiently implemented the LOD-sprite technique with texture-mapping graphics hardware. Although to date we have only applied LOD-sprite to terrain rendering, it could easily be extended to other applications. We feel LOD-sprite holds particular promise for real-time rendering systems.

Additional Information

Acceptance rate: 36% (47 out of 129)

BibTeX

@InProceedings{IEEEVIS99-lod, 
  author =      {Baoquan Chen and J. Edward {Swan~II} and Eddy Kuo and Arie Kaufman}, 
  title =       {LOD-Sprite Technique for Accelerated Terrain Rendering}, 
  booktitle =   {Proceedings of IEEE Visualization '99}, 
  location =    {San Francisco, California, USA}, 
  date =        {October 24--29}, 
  month =       {October}, 
  year =        1999, 
  publisher =   {IEEE Computer Society Press}, 
  pages =       {291--298}, 
  abstract =    { 
We present a new rendering technique, termed <em>LOD-sprite</em> rendering, 
which uses a combination of a level-of-detail (LOD) representation of the scene 
together with reusing image <em>sprites</em> (previously rendered images).  Our 
primary application is accelerating terrain rendering.  The LOD-sprite technique 
renders an initial frame using a high-resolution model of the scene geometry. 
It renders subsequent frames with a much lower-resolution model of the scene 
geometry and texture-maps each polygon with the image sprite from the initial 
high-resolution frame.  As it renders these subsequent frames the technique 
measures the error associated with the divergence of the view position from the 
position where the initial frame was rendered.  Once this error exceeds a 
user-defined threshold, the technique re-renders the scene from the 
high-resolution model.  We have efficiently implemented the LOD-sprite technique 
with texture-mapping graphics hardware.  Although to date we have only applied 
LOD-sprite to terrain rendering, it could easily be extended to other 
applications.  We feel LOD-sprite holds particular promise for real-time 
rendering systems. 
}, 
}