Technical reports

Selective mesh refinement for interactive terrain rendering

Peter J.C. Brown

February 1997, 18 pages

DOI: 10.48456/tr-417

Abstract

Terrain surfaces are often approximated by geometric meshes to permit efficient rendering. This paper describes how the complexity of an approximating irregular mesh can be varied across its domain in order to minimise the number of displayed facets while ensuring that the rendered surface meets pre-determined resolution requirements. We first present a generalised scheme to represent a mesh over a continuous range of resolutions using the output from conventional single-resolution approximation methods. We then describe an algorithm which extracts a surface from this representation such that the resolution of the surface is enhanced only in specific areas of interest. We prove that the extracted surface is complete, minimal, satisfies the given resolution constraints and meets the Delaunay triangulation criterion if possible. In addition, we present a method of performing smooth visual transitions between selectively-refined meshes to permit efficient animation of a terrain scene.

A HTML version of that report is at https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/research/rainbow/publications/pjcb/tr417/

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BibTeX record

@TechReport{UCAM-CL-TR-417,
  author =	 {Brown, Peter J.C.},
  title = 	 {{Selective mesh refinement for interactive terrain
         	   rendering}},
  year = 	 1997,
  month = 	 feb,
  url = 	 {https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/techreports/UCAM-CL-TR-417.pdf},
  institution =  {University of Cambridge, Computer Laboratory},
  doi = 	 {10.48456/tr-417},
  number = 	 {UCAM-CL-TR-417}
}