View-dependent Level Of Detail Research Articles

OUTCROP EXPLORER: A POINT-BASED SYSTEM FOR VISUALIZATION AND INTERPRETATION OF LiDAR DIGITAL MODELS

The use of LiDAR-based models for natural outcrops and surfaces studies has increased in the last few years. This technique has been found to be potential to represent digitally tridimensional data, thus it increases the quality and amount of data available for interpretation by geoscientists. Researchers, in computations, face difficulties in handling the huge amount of the data acquired by LiDAR systems. It is difficult to visualize efficiently the point cloud and convert it to high-quality digital models (DMs) with specific interpretation tools. Some in-house and commercial software solutions have been developed by some research groups and industries, respectively. However, all solutions must consider the large database as the pain point of the project. Outcrop Explorer has been developed to manage large point clouds, to provide interpretation tools, and to allow integration with other applications through data exporting. In terms of software architecture, view-dependent level of detail (LOD) and a hierarchical space-partitioning structure in the form of octree are integrated in order to optimize the data access and to promote a proper visualization and navigation in the DM. This paper presents a system developed for visualization, handling and interpretation of digital models obtained from point clouds of LiDAR surveys. This system was developed considering the free graphic resources, the necessities of the geoscientists and the limitations of the commercial tools for interpretation purposes. It provides an editing tool to remove noise or unnecessary portions of the point cloud and interpretation tools to identify lines and planes, as well as their orientations, and it has different exporting formats. However, being an open source project much more collaborative development is necessary.

A Simple Multi-Models Rendering Framework - PM-OCMMRF

We presented a new framework for dynamic level of detail rendering of multi-models. Our framework adopts LOD control on every single model, and keeps low screen errors. Firstly, we introduce a new simple and efficient implementation of PM which is used to save memory and CPU resource. Secondly, we try to optimize all models by combining progressive mesh with occlusion culling. At last, we promote a view-dependent level of detail rendering system by technics such as frustum culling, LOD control, reservation of resource, GPU cache and so on. Experiments show that this simple framework which is named PM-OCMMRF (Progressive Mesh-Occlusion Culling combined Multi-Models Rendering Framework) values a lot in applications of rendering multi-models.

Visualizing dynamic geosciences phenomena using an octree-based view-dependent LOD strategy within virtual globes

Geoscientists build dynamic models to simulate various natural phenomena for a better understanding of our planet. Interactive visualizations of these geoscience models and their outputs through virtual globes on the Internet can help the public understand the dynamic phenomena related to the Earth more intuitively. However, challenges arise when the volume of four-dimensional data (4D), 3D in space plus time, is huge for rendering. Datasets loaded from geographically distributed data servers require synchronization between ingesting and rendering data. Also the visualization capability of display clients varies significantly in such an online visualization environment; some may not have high-end graphic cards. To enhance the efficiency of visualizing dynamic volumetric data in virtual globes, this paper proposes a systematic framework, in which an octree-based multiresolution data structure is implemented to organize time series 3D geospatial data to be used in virtual globe environments. This framework includes a view-dependent continuous level of detail (LOD) strategy formulated as a synchronized part of the virtual globe rendering process. Through the octree-based data retrieval process, the LOD strategy enables the rendering of the 4D simulation at a consistent and acceptable frame rate. To demonstrate the capabilities of this framework, data of a simulated dust storm event are rendered in World Wind, an open source virtual globe. The rendering performances with and without the octree-based LOD strategy are compared. The experimental results show that using the proposed data structure and processing strategy significantly enhances the visualization performance when rendering dynamic geospatial phenomena in virtual globes.

Feature-preserving triangular geometry images for level-of-detail representation of static and skinned meshes

Geometry images resample meshes to represent them as texture for efficient GPU processing by forcing a regular parameterization that often incurs a large amount of distortion. Previous approaches broke the geometry image into multiple rectangular or irregular charts to reduce distortion, but complicated the automatic level of detail one gets from MIP-maps of the geometry image. We introduce triangular-chart geometry images and show this new approach better supports the GPU-side representation and display of skinned dynamic meshes, with support for feature preservation, bounding volumes, and view-dependent level of detail. Triangular charts pack efficiently, simplify the elimination of T-junctions, arise naturally from an edge-collapse simplification base mesh, and layout more flexibly to allow their edges to follow curvilinear mesh features. To support the construction and application of triangular-chart geometry images, this article introduces a new spectral clustering method for feature detection, and new methods for incorporating skinning weights and skinned bounding boxes into the representation. This results in a tenfold improvement in fidelity when compared to quad-chart geometry images.

A POINT-BASED ASYNCHRONOUS REMOTE VISUALIZATION FRAMEWORK FOR REAL-TIME VIRTUAL REALITY

High speed interactive virtual reality (VR) exploration of scientific datasets is a challenge when the visualization is computationally expensive. This paper presents a point-based remote visualization pipeline for real-time virtual reality (VR) with asynchronous client-server coupling. Steered by the client-end frustum request, the remote server samples the original dataset into 3D point samples and sends them back to the client for view updating. From every view updating frame, the client incrementally builds up a point-based geometry under an octree-based space partition hierarchy. At every view-reconstruction frame, the client continuously splats the available points onto the screen with efficient occlusion culling and view-dependent level of detail (LOD) control. An experimental visualization framework with a server-end computer cluster and a client-end head-tracked autostereo VR desktop display is used to visualize large-scale mesh datasets and ray-traced 4D Julia set datasets. The overall performance of the VR view reconstruction is about 15 fps and independent of the original dataset complexity.

Efficient implementation of real-time view-dependent multiresolution meshing

In this paper, we present an efficient (topology preserving) multiresolution meshing framework for interactive level-of-detail (LOD) generation and rendering of large triangle meshes. More specifically, the presented approach, called FastMesh, provides view-dependent LOD generation and real-time mesh simplification that minimizes visual artifacts. Multiresolution triangle mesh representations are an important tool for reducing triangle mesh complexity in interactive rendering environments. Ideally, for interactive visualization, a triangle mesh is simplified to the maximal tolerated visible error and, thus, mesh simplification is view-dependent. This paper introduces an efficient hierarchical multiresolution triangulation framework based on a half-edge triangle mesh data structure and presents optimized implementations of several view-dependent or visual mesh simplification heuristics within that framework. Despite being optimized for performance, these error heuristics provide conservative error bounds. The presented framework is highly efficient both in space and time cost and needs only a fraction of the time required for rendering to perform the error calculations and dynamic mesh updates.