A parallelized screen-based method for rendering polylines and polygons on terrain surfaces. (February 2017)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: She, Jiangfeng; Zhou, Yang; Tan, Xin; Li, Xingong; Guo, Xingchen
• Is Part Of: Computers & geosciences. Volume 99(2017)
• Page Start: 19
• Page End: 27
• Publication Date: 2017-02
• Subjects: Virtual geographical environment -- 3D cartography -- Rendering technique -- Screen-based rendering -- Image line combination; Environmental policy -- Periodicals; 550.5
• DOI: 10.1016/j.cageo.2016.10.011
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0098-3004

Abstract

Abstract: Two dimensional (2D) vector features, when rendered on terrain as reference or highlight features, can improve the intelligibility of three dimensional (3D) scenes. This research proposes a new screen-space based method to render solid color 2D polylines and polygons on terrain. Using the z-buffer value and window coordinates in screen space, a pixel's spatial extent in real world coordinates can be calculated. The pixel's color is changed, if its spatial extent intersects with a polyline or polygon feature, to reflect the fact that there is a polyline going through or a polygon covering the pixel. Compared to other existing methods, our method eliminates undesirable rendering artifacts. A parallel computing schema was proposed and implemented as well to improve rendering performance. Highlights: New screen-space based method to render 2D polylines and polygons on terrain. Undesirable rendering artifacts are eliminated. Parallelized for rendering performance.