Jan Klein
Rolf Wanka
ABSTRACT
We present a new data structure for rendering highly complex virtual environments of arbitrary topology. The special feature of our approach is that it allows an interactive navigation in very large scenes (30 GB/400 million polygons in our benchmark scenes) that cannot be stored in main memory, but only on a local or remote hard disk. Furthermore, it allows interactive rendering of substantially more complex scenes by instantiating objects.For the computation of an approximate image of the scene, a sampling technique is used. In the preprocessing, a so-called sample tree is built whose nodes contain randomly selected polygons from the scene. This tree only uses space that is linear in the number of polygons. In order to produce an image of the scene, the tree is traversed and polygons stored in the visited nodes are rendered. During the interactive walkthrough, parts of the sample tree are loaded from local or remote hard disk.We implemented our algorithm in a prototypical walkthrough system. Analysis and experiments show that the quality of our images is comparable to images computed by the conventional z-buffer algorithm regardless of the scene topology.
- M. Alexa, J. Behr, D. Cohen-Or, S. Fleishman, D. Levin, and C. T. Silva. Point set surfaces. In Proc. IEEE Visualization 2001, pages 21--28, 2001. Google Scholar
Digital Library
- E. Catmull. A Subdivision Algorithm for Computer Display of Curved Surfaces. PhD thesis, University of Utah, 1974. Google ScholarDigital Library
- B. Chen and M. X. Nguyen. POP: A hybrid point and polygon rendering system for large data. In Proc. IEEE Visualization 2001, pages 45--52, 2001. Google ScholarDigital Library
- J. H. Clark. Hierarchical geometric models for visible surface algorithms. Communications of the ACM, 19(10):547--554, 1976. Google ScholarDigital Library
- D. Cohen-Or, Y. Chrysanthou, C. Silva, and F. Durand. A survey of visibility for walkthrough applications. Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, 2002. to appear. Google ScholarDigital Library
- D. Cohen-Or and E. Zadicario. Visibility streaming for network-based walkthroughs. In Graphics Interface 1998, pages 1--7, 1998.Google Scholar
- B. Curless. The happy buddha model. Stanford Computer Graphics Laboratory.Google Scholar
- M. Eck, T. DeRose, T. Duchamp, H. Hoppe, M. Lounsbery, and W. Stuetzle. Multiresolution analysis of arbitrary meshes. In Computer Graphics (SIGGRAPH 1995 Conference Proc.), pages 173--182, 1995. Google ScholarDigital Library
- J. El-Sana, N. Sokolovsky, and C. T. Silva. Integrating occlusion culling with view- dependent rendering. In Proc. IEEE Visualization 2001, pages 371--378, 2001. Google ScholarDigital Library
- T. A. Funkhouser. RING: A client-server system for multiuser virtual environments. In Proc. ACM SIGGRAPH Symposium on Interactive 3D Graphics 1995, pages 85--92, 1995. Google ScholarDigital Library
- T. A. Funkhouser. Database management for interactive display of large architectural models. In Graphics Interface 1996, pages 1--8, Toronto, 1996. Google ScholarDigital Library
- N. Greene, M. Kass, and G. Miller. Hierarchical z-buffer visibility. In Computer Graphics (SIGGRAPH 1993 Conference Proc.), pages 231--238, 1993. Google ScholarDigital Library
- J. P. Grossman and W. Dally. Point sample rendering. In Proc. Rendering Techniques 1998, pages 181--192, 1998.Google ScholarCross Ref
- P. S. Heckbert and M. Garland. Multiresolution modeling for fast rendering. In Proc. Graphics Interface 1994, pages 43--50, 1994.Google Scholar
- H. Hoppe. Progressive meshes. In Computer Graphics (SIGGRAPH 1996 Conference Proc.), pages 99--108, 1996. Google ScholarDigital Library
- M. Levoy and T. Whitted. The use of points as a display primitive. Technical Report 85-022, Computer Science Department, University of North Carolina, 1985.Google Scholar
- P. Lindstrom and V. Pascucci. Visualization of large terrains made easy. In Proc. IEEE Visualization 2001, pages 363--370, 2001. Google ScholarDigital Library
- P. W. C. Maciel and P. Shirley. Visual navigation of large environments using textured clusters. In Proc. ACM SIGGRAPH Symposium on Interactive 3D Graphics 1995, pages 95--102, 1995. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Y. Mann and D. Cohen-Or. Selective pixel transmission for navigating in remote virtual environments. In Computer Graphics Forum (Proc. EUROGRAPHICS 1997), 1997.Google Scholar
- R. Motwani and P. Raghavan. Randomized Algorithms. Cambridge University Press, 1995. Google ScholarDigital Library
- H. Pfister, M. Zwicker, J. van Baar, and M. Gross. Surfels: Surface elements as rendering primitives. In Computer Graphics (SIGGRAPH 2000 Conference Proc.), pages 335--342, 2000. Google ScholarDigital Library
- S. Rusinkiewicz and M. Levoy. QSplat: A multiresolution point rendering system for large meshes. In Computer Graphics (SIGGRAPH 2000 Conference Proc.), pages 343--352, 2000. Google ScholarDigital Library
- S. Rusinkiewicz and M. Levoy. Streaming QSplat: A viewer for networked visualization of large, dense models. In Proc. ACM SIGGRAPH Symposium on Interactive 3D Graphics 2001, 2001. Google ScholarDigital Library
- D. Schmalstieg and M. Gervautz. Demand-driven geometry transmission for distributed virtual environments. In Computer Graphics Forum (Proc. EUROGRAPHICS 1996), number 3, pages 421--433, 1996.Google ScholarCross Ref
- J. M. Sewell. Managing Complex Models for Computer Graphics. PhD thesis, University of Cambridge, Queens' College, 1996.Google Scholar
- L. Sobierajski Avila and W. Schroeder. Interactive visualization of aircraft and power generation engines. In Proc. IEEE Visualization 1997, pages 483--486, 1997. Google ScholarDigital Library
- M. Stamminger and G. Drettakis. Interactive sampling and rendering for complex and procedural geometry. In Proc. Rendering Techniques 2001, pages 151--162, 2001. Google ScholarDigital Library
- S. J. Teller and C. H. Séquin. Visibility preprocessing for interactive walkthroughs. In Computer Graphics (SIGGRAPH 1991 Conference Proc.), pages 61--69, 1991. Google ScholarDigital Library
- I. Wald, P. Slusallek, and C. Benthin. Interactive distributed ray tracing of highly complex models. In Rendering Techniques 2001: 12th Eurographics Workshop on Rendering, pages 277--288, 2001. Google ScholarCross Ref
- I. Wald, P. Slusallek, C. Benthin, and M. Wagner. Interactive rendering with coherent ray tracing. In Computer Graphics Forum. 20(3), pages 153--164, 2001.Google Scholar
- M. Wand, M. Fischer, I. Peter, F. Meyer auf der Heide, and W. Straßer. The randomized z-buffer algorithm: Interactive rendering of highly complex scenes. In Computer Graphics (SIGGRAPH 2001 Conference Proc.), pages 361--370, 2001. Google ScholarDigital Library
- J. Wernecke. The Inventor Mentor: Programming ObjectOriented 3D Graphics with Open Inventor. Addison Wesley, second edition, 1994. Google ScholarDigital Library
Index Terms
- The randomized sample tree: a data structure for interactive walkthroughs in externally stored virtual environments
Recommendations
The randomized z-buffer algorithm: interactive rendering of highly complex scenes
SIGGRAPH '01: Proceedings of the 28th annual conference on Computer graphics and interactive techniquesWe present a new output-sensitive rendering algorithm, the randomized z-buffer algorithm. It renders an image of an arbitrary three-dimensional scene consisting of triangular primitives by reconstruction from a dynamically chosen set of random surface ...
Size equivalent cluster trees (SEC-Trees) realtime rendering of large industrial scenes
AFRIGRAPH '06: Proceedings of the 4th international conference on Computer graphics, virtual reality, visualisation and interaction in AfricaIn this work we present a rendering method with guaranteed interactive frame-rates in complex 3D scenes. The algorithm is based on an new data structure determined in a preprocessing to avoid frozen displays in large simulative visualizations like ...
Interactive global illumination in dynamic scenes
SIGGRAPH '02: Proceedings of the 29th annual conference on Computer graphics and interactive techniquesIn this paper, we present a system for interactive computation of global illumination in dynamic scenes. Our system uses a novel scheme for caching the results of a high quality pixel-based renderer such as a bidirectional path tracer. The Shading Cache ...
Comments