Terrain Real-Time Rendering Based on Projected Grid and GPU Unsaturated Error Metric

Abstract

To render terrain realistically and efficiently, we firstly introduce projected grid to construct terrain coarse meshes. Projected grid uses longest edge bisection, taking advantages of fracture eliminating, to implement triangle subdivision. To realize adaptive refinement of terrain coarse meshes, we introduce the concept of bounding sphere and the idea of unsaturated error metric, design GPU unsaturated error metric based on bounding sphere, in order to implement terrain LOD modeling finally. Experimental results show that projected grid avoids culling and improves the speed of terrain rendering, GPU unsaturated error metric can select terrain coarse meshes nodes accurately, reduce triangles number and keep terrain feature. As a result, the algorithm can achieve a high FPS and a good visual effect, implement terrain real-time rendering.