high performance computing on graphics processing units: hgpu.org

In this paper, we propose a new technique for hardware accelerated multi-resolution geometry synthesis. The level of detail for a given viewpoint is created on-the-fly, allowing for an almost unlimited model resolution in rendering without excessive memory usage. The models consist of regularly sampled rectangular patches that are subdivided hierarchically by a programmable shader in order to create different levels of resolution. The approach is inherently parallel and lends itself to an implementation on vector processor-like parallel architectures. We demonstrate this property by an implementation on programmable graphics hardware. This implementation shows a substantial performance benefit over a CPU-based implementation by up to more than an order of magnitude. We apply the framework to rendering of smooth surfaces and to rendering of complexly structured fractal landscapes using a novel multi-channel fractal subdivision technique. Due to the hardware acceleration, it is possible to perform interactive editing and walkthroughs of such scenes in real-time.