Interactive distributed hardware-accelerated LOD-sprite terrain rendering with stable frame rates

J. Edward Swan II; Jesus Arango; Bala Krishna Nakshatrala

doi:10.1117/12.458785

12 March 2002 Interactive distributed hardware-accelerated LOD-sprite terrain rendering with stable frame rates

J. Edward Swan II, Jesus Arango, Bala Krishna Nakshatrala

Proceedings Volume 4665, Visualization and Data Analysis 2002; (2002) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.458785
Event: Electronic Imaging, 2002, San Jose, California, United States

Abstract

A stable frame rate is important for interactive rendering systems. Image-based modeling and rendering (IBMR) techniques, which model parts of the scene with image sprites, are a promising technique for interactive systems because they allow the sprite to be manipulated instead of the underlying scene geometry. However, with IBMR techniques a frequent problem is an unstable frame rate, because generating an image sprite (with 3D rendering) is time-consuming relative to manipulating the sprite (with 2D image resampling). This paper describes one solution to this problem, by distributing an IBMR technique into a collection of cooperating threads and executable programs across two computers. The particular IBMR technique distributed here is the LOD-Sprite algorithm. This technique uses a multiple level-of-detail (LOD) scene representation. It first renders a keyframe from a high-LOD representation, and then caches the frame as an image sprite. It renders subsequent spriteframes by texture-mapping the cached image sprite into a lower-LOD representation. We describe a distributed architecture and implementation of LOD-Sprite, in the context of terrain rendering, which takes advantage of graphics hardware. We present timing results which indicate we have achieved a stable frame rate. In addition to LOD-Sprite, our distribution method holds promise for other IBMR techniques.

Citation Download Citation

J. Edward Swan II, Jesus Arango, and Bala Krishna Nakshatrala "Interactive distributed hardware-accelerated LOD-sprite terrain rendering with stable frame rates", Proc. SPIE 4665, Visualization and Data Analysis 2002, (12 March 2002); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.458785

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