Interactive rendering of massive geometric models

Booklet2005-02Conference held in Pisa, ItalyTutorial notes, Eurographics Italy. Conference held in Pisa, Italy, February 17--18, CDROM Proceedings, February 200

Procedural Reproduction of Terrain Textures with Geographic Data

International audienceSurface textures of high resolution and quality, either acquired from aerial or satellite imagery or computed using procedural models, are crucial for photorealistic terrain rendering. Procedural models provide a compact representation and can be evaluated at run-time. In this paper we present an extension to an existing, GPU-friendly procedural texturing model, such that it can be fitted semiautomatically to real-world data. In order to increase realism and to account for geographic conditions, we also include temperature, solar radiation and rainfall distributions - simulated ormodeled using measured data from gaging stations - into the reproduction process. The original surface texture is no longer required for rendering: instead a new texture of arbitrary resolution is synthesized at runtime. In addition to the compact procedural model we store elevation data, anyway required for the terrain rendering, and low-resolution geographic data. We show results of our method applied to a comparatively little cultivated region in Central Asia

GPU-based Streaming for Parallel Level of Detail on Massive Model Rendering

Rendering massive 3D models in real-time has long been recognized as a very challenging problem because of the limited computational power and memory space available in a workstation. Most existing rendering techniques, especially level of detail (LOD) processing, have suffered from their sequential execution natures, and does not scale well with the size of the models. We present a GPU-based progressive mesh simplification approach which enables the interactive rendering of large 3D models with hundreds of millions of triangles. Our work contributes to the massive rendering research in two ways. First, we develop a novel data structure to represent the progressive LOD mesh, and design a parallel mesh simplification algorithm towards GPU architecture. Second, we propose a GPU-based streaming approach which adopt a frame-to-frame coherence scheme in order to minimize the high communication cost between CPU and GPU. Our results show that the parallel mesh simplification algorithm and GPU-based streaming approach significantly improve the overall rendering performance

Terrain LoD Algorithm Implementation

Tato práce pojednává o implementaci algoritmu pro LoD vizualizaci terénu Seamless Patches for GPU-Based Terrain Rendering jako rozšíření knihovny Coin3D. Prezentuje postupy, za pomoci kterých tento algoritmus zobrazuje rozsáhlé terénní datasety. Celý terén je složen z plátů, které jsou uloženy v hierarchické struktuře. Hierarchie plátů je pak za běhu programu procházena jsou z ní generovány aktivní pláty na základě pozice pozorovatele. Každý plát se skládá z předem definovaných dlaždic a spojovacích pruhů, takže nemusí udžovat žádnou konkrétní geometrii. Během vykreslování dlaždic a pruhů je aplikován displacement shader. Práce zhodnocuje výsledky dosažené implementací a navrhuje další úpravy, kterými by se dal běh algoritmu dále vylepšit.This thesis discusses implementation of LoD terrain visualization algorithm Seamless Patches for GPU-Based Terrain Rendering as extension for Coin3D library. It presents procedures which this algorithm uses for displaying large terrain datasets. Entire terrain is composed of patches that are stored in patch hierarchy. Patch hierarchy is traversed during runtime to generate active patches based on observer's position. Each patch consists of predefined tiles and connection strips so it doesn't need to store any geometry. During render of tiles and strips, displacement shader is applied. This thesis also evaluates results achieved in sample application and suggests some modifications to further increase algorithm performance.

Real-time tessellation of terrain on graphics hardware

Synthetic terrain is a key element in many applications, which can lessen the sense of realism if it is not handled correctly. We propose a new technique for visualizing terrain surfaces by tessellating them on the GPU. The presented algorithm introduces a new adaptive tessellation scheme for managing the level of detail of the terrain mesh, avoiding the appearance of t-vertices that can produce visually disturbing artifacts. Previous solutions exploited the geometry shader's capabilities to tessellate meshes from scratch. In contrast, we reuse the already calculated data to minimize the operations performed in the shader units. This feature allows us to increase performance through smart refining and coarsening. Finally, we also propose a framework to manage large DEMs as height maps.This work has been supported by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Technology (projects TIN2009-14103-C03-03, TSI-020400-2009-0133 and TIN2010-21089-C03-03), by the Generalitat Valenciana (project PROMETEO/2010/028), by Bancaja (project P1 1B2010-08) and by ITEA2 (project IP08009

2Fly with RPi - Evaluating the Raspberry Pi for Glass Cockpit Applications

Evaluating the capabilities of Raspberry Pi computers to be used in embedded glass cockpit applications for experimental aircraft. This includes details of what is required for these applications as well as how well the Raspberry Pi 3B can perform in this role

2Fly with RPi - Evaluating Suitability of the Raspberry Pi3 B Single Board Computer for Experimental Glass Cockpit Embedded Applications

Computer based cockpits typically interact with the pilot through glass covered displays, and are called glass cockpits. Glass cockpits came first to military aircraft and then to commercial aircraft. Most recently, they have become available for general aviation aircraft. However, price remains a significant barrier for low cost aircraft. At the same time, the price of computers suitable for embedded applications has dropped precipitously. The Raspberry Pi 3B is an example of just such a computer, and can be purchased for $35 to$40. This paper seeks to evaluate the suitability of this single board computer for use in an experimental glass cockpit solution. The required functionality of such a solution is detailed – both in term of functionality and in terms of internal workings. The Raspberry Pi 3B computer is then evaluated for potential suitability to drive such a solution. This evaluation is based on mathematical analysis and on the experiences of the world’s hacking community – which has embraced the Raspberry Pi with open arms. Finally, the paper discuses programming techniques and software that the author has evaluated for creating such an experimental glass cockpit. It is the author’s hope that this solution can be implemented in the near future, and that 2Fly with RPi becomes a fully functional open source experimental aircraft situational awareness aid

Methods for Automated Creation and Efficient Visualisation of Large-Scale Terrains based on Real Height-Map Data

Real-time rendering of large-scale terrains is a difficult problem and remains an active field of research. The massive scale of these landscapes, where the ratio between the size of the terrain and its resolution is spanning multiple orders of magnitude, requires an efficient level of detail strategy. It is crucial that the geometry, as well as the terrain data, are represented seamlessly at varying distances while maintaining a constant visual quality. This thesis investigates common techniques and previous solutions to problems associated with the rendering of height field terrains and discusses their benefits and drawbacks. Subsequently, two solutions to the stated problems are presented, which build and expand upon the state-of-the-art rendering methods. A seamless and efficient mesh representation is achieved by the novel Uniform Distance-Dependent Level of Detail (UDLOD) triangulation method. This fully GPU-based algorithm subdivides a quadtree covering the terrain into small tiles, which can be culled in parallel, and are morphed seamlessly in the vertex shader, resulting in a densely and temporally consistent triangulated mesh. The proposed Chunked Clipmap combines the strengths of both quadtrees and clipmaps to enable efficient out-of-core paging of terrain data. This data structure allows for constant time view-dependent access, graceful degradation if data is unavailable, and supports trilinear and anisotropic filtering. Together these, otherwise independent, techniques enable the rendering of large-scale real-world terrains, which is demonstrated on a dataset encompassing the entire Free State of Saxony at a resolution of one meter, in real-time