Integrated Multiresolution Geometry and Texture Models for Terrain Visualization

In this paper, an approach for integrating multiresolution representations of terrain geometry and terrain texture data is presented. A terrain is modeled by a regular grid, which can be partially refined by local TINs in order to represent morphologically complex terrain parts. The multiresolution models for terrain texture data and geometry data are closely related: The rendering algorithm selects geometry and texture patches based on screen-space error criteria. Multiple texture hierarchies, which may represent different thematic information layers, can be bound to one terrain model. Multiple textures lead to a drastic improvement of visual quality: Topographic textures can be used to provide pixel-precise shading, alpha textures can be used to restrict or to highlight thematic textures. Multiple textures facilitate the development of visual interaction tools such as magic lenses, and texture animations. Multitexturing permits an efficient implementation of these concepts.