Rendering Very Large, Very Detailed Terrains

Our overall goal for this project is to extend existing and develop new methods for high quality, real-time rendering of very large, very detailed terrains on commodity hardware.

We try to reach this goal by using a combination of hardware friendly level-of-detail algorithms and procedural detail generation.

During our project we hope to update this web page with more information, screen shots etc. Until then just send us an e-mail if you have any questions.

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Watch the Demo

Read the paper

Get the source code

Datasets

• Large Geometric Models (Georgia Tech)
• Elevation File Repository (vterrain.org)
• Terragen

Skyboxes

• 512x512 skybox (0.9 mb)
• 1024x1024 skybox (2.7 mb)

Papers & sites

• Rendering Massive Terrains using Chunked Level of Detail Control
• Fast Terrain Rendering Using Geometrical MipMapping
• Visualization of Large Terrains Made Easy
• Real-time Terrain Rendering using Smooth Hardware Optimized Level of Detail

• An Image Synthesizer (Kenn Perlin)
• Improving Noise (reference implementation)
• The Definition and Rendering of Terrain Maps (Gavin S. P. Miller)
• Generating Random Fractal Terrain
• Noise, Turbulence, and Texture
• Generating Terrain

• Interpolatory Subdivision on Open Quadrilateral Nets with Arbitrary Topology

• Terrain Texture Compositing by Blending in the Frame-Buffer
• Lapped Textures

• Real-Time Photorealistic Terrain Lighting
• Rendering Outdoor Light Scattering in Real Time
(old slides)
• A Practical Analytic Model for Daylight
• Display Method of the Sky Color Taking into Account Multiple Scattering
• Fast Horizon Computation at All Points of a Terrain with Visibility and Shading Applications

• Modeling of ecosystems as a data source for real-time terrain rendering

• Vertex cache optimization
• Optimization of Mesh Locality for Transparent Vertex Caching
• GeForce3 OpenGL Performance
• Balancing the Graphics Pipeline for Optimal Performance
• Using GL_NV_vertex_array_range and GL_NV_fence on GeForce Products and Beyond
• Using Texture Compression in OpenGL