Real-Time Visualization of Scalably Large Collections of Heterogeneous Objects

Abstract

This paper presents results for real-time visualization of out-of-core collections of 3D objects. This is a significant extension of previous methods and shows the generality of hierarchical paging procedures applied both to global terrain and any objects that reside on it. Applied to buildings, the procedure shows the effectiveness of using a screen-based paging and display criterion within a hierarchical framework. The results demonstrate that the method is scalable since it is able to handle multiple collections of buildings (e.g., cities) placed around the earth with full interactivity and without extensive memory load. Further the method shows efficient handling of culling and is applicable to larger, extended collections of buildings. Finally, the method shows that levels of detail can be incorporated to provide improved detail management.