Parallel View-Dependent Refinement of Compact Progressive Meshes

Abstract

The complexity of polygonal models still grows faster than the ability of the graphics hardware to render them in real-time. A common way to deal with such models is to use multiple levels of detail (LODs). These can be static with the advantage that the simplification can be performed without regarding real-time constraints and the rendering algorithm simply chooses which LODs to render at runtime. Static LODs however suffer from sudden mesh transitions (popping artifacts) when the levels are too different. Dynamic or view-dependent LODs solve this problem by allowing for a continuous and smooth refinement. Unfortunately, they become computationally too expensive when the number of vertices is high, because refinement operations have to be computed for every vertex. In this paper, we address this problem by introducing a compact data structure for progressive meshes optimized for parallel processing and low memory consumption on the GPU. We also present an efficient LOD adaption algorithm resulting in an adaption time almost equal to the rendering time of the adapted mesh.