US 2007/0182734 A1 · Adaptive Quadtree-based Scalable Surface Rendering

Abstract

The present invention relates to computer graphics. This method allows efficient real-time 3D rendering of high-detail smooth surfaces. It is exceptionally effective with software rendering and low-end weaker graphics accelerators, and provides excellent visible quality per the amount of polygons used, while retaining low CPU processing overhead and high efficiency on graphics hardware. Also, it can be used under very restrictive memory requirements. In particular the invention relates to real time rendering of extremely detailed smooth surfaces with view-dependent tessellation using an improved level of detail approach. The invention utilizes a quad-tree map and geometric boundaries consisting of manifold non-self-intersecting surfaces. All cached fragments keep all of the information loaded from their corresponding source nodes in system memory, and additional information computed by the rendering system.

Claims9

Dependent claims

A 3D scalable surface renderer having the steps of:

Inputting a surface function, utilizing a surface preprocessor to create a database from said surface function in a storage medium, said database containing a quad-tree data structure, where each node contains one or more manifold triangle meshes.
accessing said database in said storage medium from a client system utilizing streaming requests, said streaming requests being established according to view setting inputs;
determining visibility of nodes of said quad-tree using said view setting inputs;
determining a quad-tree node set used for rendering based on the portion of the quad-tree data structure that has been retrieved and stored in available memory, according to said visibility determination component;
said surface renderer producing 3D geometry primitives based on said node set;
and
said 3D geometry primitives rendered on a graphics display.

4 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Adaptive Quadtree-based Scalable Surface Rendering

Life of this patent

Adaptive Quadtree-based Scalable Surface Rendering

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims9