Interactive Vegetation Rendering with Slicing and Blending

Jakulin, Aleks

Interactive Vegetation Rendering with Slicing and Blending

Files

short15.pdf (442.31 KB)

Date

2000

Authors

Jakulin, Aleks

Publisher

Eurographics Association

Abstract

Detailed and interactive 3D rendering of vegetation is one of the challenges of traditional polygon-oriented computer graphics, due to large geometric complexity even of simple plants. In this paper we introduce a simplified image-based rendering approach based solely on alpha-blended textured polygons. The simplification is based on the limitations of human perception of complex geometry. Our approach renders dozens of detailed trees in real-time with off-the-shelf hardware, while providing significantly improved image quality over existing real-time techniques. The method is based on using ordinary mesh-based rendering for the solid parts of a tree, its trunk and limbs. The sparse parts of a tree, its twigs and leaves, are instead represented with a set of slices, an imagebased representation. A slice is a planar layer, represented with an ordinary alpha or color-keyed texture; a set of parallel slices is a slicing. Rendering from an arbitrary viewpoint in a 360 degree circle around the center of a tree is achieved by blending between the nearest two slicings. In our implementation, only 6 slicings with 5 slices each are sufficient to visualize a tree for a moving or stationary observer with the perceptually similar quality as the original model.

        @inproceedings{10.2312:egs.20001004
,
booktitle = {Eurographics 2000 - Short Presentations
},
editor = {},
title = {{Interactive Vegetation Rendering with Slicing and Blending
}},
author = {Jakulin, Aleks
},
year = {2000
},
publisher = {Eurographics Association
},
ISSN = {1017-4656
},
ISBN = {},
DOI = {10.2312/egs.20001004
}
}