Effective Techniques for Interactive Rendering of Global Terrain Surfaces

Abstract—Global terrain visual systems must support real-time visualization and manipulation of huge multiresolution geograph-ical datasets. In this letter, we focus on certain key techniques, such as construction of three-dimensional (3-D) ellipsoidal models, spa-tial indexing mechanisms, interactive terrain datasets simplifica-tion by the M-band wavelets and triangulation techniques, and sur-face browsing from different view directions. Finally, an experi-ment is carried out using different levels of detail data; our results suggest that the methods are effective in enhancing performance of a 3-D global visual system. Index Terms—Ellipsoidal quadtrees, M-band wavelets, multires-olution, spatial indexing. I