Progressive Buffers: View-dependent Geometry and Texture for LOD Rendering

Abstract

We introduce a view-dependent level of detail rendering system designed with modern GPU architectures in mind. Our approach keeps the data in static buffers and geomorphs between different LODs using per-vertex weights for seamless transition. Our method is the first out-of-core system to support texture mapping, including a mechanism for texture LOD. This approach completely avoids LOD pops and boundary cracks while gracefully adapting to a specified framerate or level of detail. Our method is suitable for all classes of GPUs that provide basic vertex shader programmability, and is applicable for both out-of-core or instanced geometry. The contributions of our work include a preprocessing and rendering system for view-dependent LOD rendering by geomorphing static buffers using per-vertex weights, a vertex buffer tree to minimize the number of API draw calls when rendering coarse-level geometry, and automatic methods for efficient, transparent LOD control.