SIMPLIFICATION WITH OCCLUSION CULLING

Abstract

Level of detail modeling and visibility computation are two important compo­nents of efficient scene rendering algorithms. Both aim to lessen the graphics load by lowering polygon count. However, they are usually researched as separate problems. This thesis proposes a general framework that integrates the two techniques to optimize rendering. In particular, an idea for occlusion preprocessing which works for both indoor and outdoor environments is presented. This is achieved by generalizing the visibility cell partitioning concept for architectural walkthrough. We also show how selective refinement and visibility checking can complement each other to accelerate real-time visualization with significant polygon count reduction. In addition, our algorithm is able to perform occlusion culling efficiently for scenes containing densely tressellated models by deducing big occluders through simplification.