Interactive panoramic map-like views for 3D mountain navigation

In 3D terrain navigation applications, the views based on general perspective projection often find features of interest (FOIs) being occluded. As an alternative, panorama-like views preserve the similarity between 3D scenes before and after the deformations while ensuring the visibility of interested features. In this paper, an automatic method for generating panoramic map-like views is proposed in mountainous areas. The created panorama-like views by moving up the view position as well as the terrain deformation can successfully avoid occlusions of the FOIs. The final views also ensure the resemblance in appearance for the FOIs and landscapes, and thus satisfy the demand for interactive occlusion-free navigation in 3D complex terrain environments. & 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.