Skip to main content
Springer Nature Link
Log in

Visualization of level-of-detail meshes on the GPU

  • Original Article
  • Published:
The Visual Computer Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Extensive research has been carried out in multiresolution models for many decades. The tendency in recent years has been to harness the potential of GPUs to perform the level-of-detail extraction on graphics hardware. The aim of this work is to present a new level-of-detail scheme based on triangles which is both simple and efficient. In this approach, the extraction process updates vertices instead of indices, thus providing a perfect framework for adapting the algorithms to work completely on GPU shaders. One of the key aspects of our proposal is the need for just a single rendering pass in order to obtain the desired geometry. Moreover, coherence among the different approximations is maximized by means of a symmetric extraction algorithm, which performs the same process when refining and coarsening the mesh. Lastly, we also introduce different uses of the scheme to offer continuous and view-dependent resolution.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Subscribe and save

Springer+ Basic
$34.99 /Month
  • Get 10 units per month
  • Download Article/Chapter or eBook
  • 1 Unit = 1 Article or 1 Chapter
  • Cancel anytime
Subscribe now

Buy Now

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Explore related subjects

Discover the latest articles, news and stories from top researchers in related subjects.

References

  1. nVidia CUDA compute unified device architecture—programming guide version 2.0. http://developer.download.nvidia.com/compute/cuda/2_0/docs/NVIDIA_CUDA_Programming_Guide_2.0.pdf (2007)

  2. Blythe, D.: The Direct3D 10 system. ACM Trans. Graph. 25(3), 724–734 (2006)

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  3. Borgeat, L., Godin, G., Blais, F., Massicotte, P., Lahanier, C.: Gold: interactive display of huge colored and textured models. ACM Trans. Graph. 24(3), 869–877 (2005)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Boubekeur, T., Schlick, C.: A flexible kernel for adaptive mesh refinement on GPU. Comput. Graph. Forum 27(1), 102–114 (2008)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Castelló, P., Chover, M., Sbert, M., Feixas, M.: Applications of information theory to computer graphics (part 7). In: Eurographics Tutorial Notes, vol. 2, pp. 891–902. Eurographics, Aine-la-Ville (2007)

    Google Scholar 

  6. Chhugani, J., Kumar, S.: Geometry engine optimization: cache friendly compressed representation of geometry. In: I3D ’07: Proceedings of the 2007 Symposium on Interactive 3D Graphics and Games, pp. 9–16 (2007)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  7. Cignoni, P., Ganovelli, F., Gobbetti, E., Marton, F., Ponchio, F., Scopigno, R.: Batched multi triangulation. In: IEEE Visualization, pp. 207–214 (2005)

    Google Scholar 

  8. Clark, J.: Hierarchical geometric models for visible surface algorithms. Commun. ACM 10(19), 547–554 (1976)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Cohen, J., Olano, M., Manocha, D.: Appearance-preserving simplification. In: SIGGRAPH ’98, pp. 115–122 (1998)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  10. DeCoro, C., Tatarchuk, N.: Real-time mesh simplification using the GPU. In: I3D ’07: Proceedings of the 2007 Symposium on Interactive 3D Graphics and Games, pp. 161–166 (2007)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  11. Dyken, C., Reimers, M., Seland, J.: Real-time GPU silhouette refinement using adaptively blended Bézier patches. Comput. Graph. Forum 27(1), 1–12 (2008)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. El-Sana, J., Chiang, Y.: External memory view-dependent simplification. Comput. Graph. Forum 19(3), 139–150 (2000)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  13. Garland, M., Heckbert, P.: Surface simplification using quadric error metrics. In: SIGGRAPH ’97: Proceedings of the 24th Annual Conference on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques, pp. 209–216 (1997)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  14. Gonzalez, C., Gumbau, J., Chover, M., Castelló, P.: Mesh simplification for interactive applications. In: Proc. of 16th International Conference in Central Europe on Computer Graphics, Visualization and Computer Vision (WSCG 2008), pp. 87–91 (2008)

    Google Scholar 

  15. Hoppe, H.: Progressive meshes. In: SIGGRAPH ’96: Proceedings of the 23rd Annual Conference on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques, pp. 99–108 (1996)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  16. Hoppe, H.: View-dependent refinement of progressive meshes. Comput. Graph. 31, 189–198 (1997) (Annual Conference Series)

    Google Scholar 

  17. Hu, L., Sander, P., Hoppe, H.: Parallel view-dependent refinement of progressive meshes. In: I3D ’09: Proceedings of the 2009 Symposium on Interactive 3D Graphics and Games, pp. 169–176 (2009)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  18. Ji, J., Wu, E., Li, S., Liu, X.: Dynamic lod on GPU. In: Computer Graphics International, pp. 108–114 (2005)

    Google Scholar 

  19. Lin, G., Yu, T.: An improved vertex caching scheme for 3D mesh rendering. IEEE Trans. Vis. Comput. Graph. 12(4), 640–648 (2006)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  20. Lindstrom, P., Turk, G.: Image-driven simplification. ACM Trans. Graph. 19(3), 204–241 (2000)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  21. Livny, Y., Press, M., El-Sana, J.: Interactive GPU-based adaptive cartoon-style rendering. Vis. Comput. 24(4), 239–247 (2008)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  22. Losasso, F., Hoppe, H., Schaefer, S., Warren, J.: Smooth geometry images. In: SGP ’03: Proceedings of the 2003 Eurographics/ACM SIGGRAPH Symposium on Geometry Processing, pp. 138–145 (2003)

    Google Scholar 

  23. Luebke, D.: Level of Detail for 3D Graphics, vol. 1. Elsevier Science, Amsterdam (2002)

    Google Scholar 

  24. Luebke, D., Hallen, B.: Perceptually-driven simplification for interactive rendering. In: 12th Eurographics Workshop on Rendering, pp. 223–234 (2001)

    Google Scholar 

  25. Luebke, D., Reddy, M., Cohen, J., Varshney, A., Watson, B., Huebner, R.: Level of Detail for 3D Graphics. Morgan-Kaufmann, San Mateo (2003)

    Google Scholar 

  26. Niski, K., Purnomo, B., Cohen, J.: Multi-grained level of detail using a hierarchical seamless texture atlas. In: Proceedings of I3D’07, pp. 153–160 (2007)

    Google Scholar 

  27. Pajarola, R.: Fastmesh: Efficient view-dependent meshing. In: PG ’01: Proceedings of the 9th Pacific Conference on Computer Graphics and Applications, p. 22. IEEE Computer Society, Los Alamitos (2001)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  28. Purnomo, B.: Amd tootle ver 2.0. http://ati.amd.com/developer/tootle.html (2008)

  29. Ramos, F., Chover, M., Ripolles, O., Granell, C.: Continuous level of detail on graphics hardware. In: Discrete Geometry for Computer Imagery, vol. 4245, pp. 460–469 (2006)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  30. Ribelles, J., Chover, M., López, A., Huerta, J.: A first step to evaluate and compare multiresolution models. In: Short Papers and Demos of Eurographics’99, pp. 230–232 (1999)

    Google Scholar 

  31. Ripolles, O., Chover, M.: Optimizing the management of continuous level of detail models on GPU. Comput. Graph. 32(3), 307–319 (2008)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  32. Ripolles, O., Gumbau, J., Chover, M., Ramos, F., Puig-Centelles, A.: View-dependent multiresolution modeling on the GPU. In: Winter School of Computer Graphics (WSCG 2009) (2009)

    Google Scholar 

  33. Ripolles, O., Ramos, F., Chover, M.: Sliding-tris: A sliding window level-of-detail scheme. In: Computer Graphics and Geometric Modeling (CGGM) 2008 Workshop (2008)

    Google Scholar 

  34. Sander, P., Mitchell, J.: Progressive buffers: view-dependent geometry and texture lod rendering. In: SGP ’05: Proceedings of the Third Eurographics Symposium on Geometry Processing, p. 129 (2005)

    Google Scholar 

  35. Sander, P., Nehab, D., Barczak, J.: Fast triangle reordering for vertex locality and reduced overdraw. ACM Trans. Graph. 26(3), 89 (2007)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  36. Schwarz, M., Stamminger, M.: Fast GPU-based adaptive tessellation with CUDA. Comput. Graph. Forum 28(2), 365–374 (2009)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  37. Shafae, M., Pajarola, R.: Dstrips: Dynamic triangle strips for real-time mesh simplification and rendering. In: Proceedings Pacific Graphics 2003, pp. 271–280 (2003)

    Google Scholar 

  38. Southern, R., Gain, J.: Creation and control of real-time continuous level of detail on programmable graphics hardware. Comput. Graph. Forum 22(1), 35–48 (2003)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  39. Tariq, S.: D3D11 tessellation. Game Developers Conference. Session: Advanced Visual Effects with Direct3D for PC. http://developer.download.nvidia.com/presentations/2009/GDC/GDC09_D3D11Tessellation.pdf (2009)

  40. Turchyn, P.: Memory-efficient sliding window progressive meshes. In: Proc. of 15th International Conference in Central Europe on Computer Graphics, Visualization and Computer Vision (WSCG 2007), pp. 33–40 (2007)

    Google Scholar 

  41. Yoon, S., Salomon, B., Gayle, R., Manocha, D.: Quick-vdr: Interactive view-dependent rendering of massive models. In: VIS ’04: Proceedings of the Conference on Visualization ’04, pp. 131–138. IEEE Computer Society, Los Alamitos (2004)

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Inst. Universitari d’Automàtica i Informática Industrial, Universitat Politècnica de València, Camino de Vera s/n, València, Spain

    Oscar Ripolles

  2. Institute of New Imaging Technologies, Universitat Jaume I, Av. Vicent Sos Baynat s/n, Castellon, Spain

    Miguel Chover & Francisco Ramos

Authors
  1. Oscar Ripolles
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Miguel Chover
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Francisco Ramos
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Oscar Ripolles.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Ripolles, O., Chover, M. & Ramos, F. Visualization of level-of-detail meshes on the GPU. Vis Comput 27, 793–809 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00371-011-0554-2

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00371-011-0554-2

Keywords

Search

Navigation