Level of Detail for 3D Graphics by David Luebke, Benjamin Watson, Jonathan D. Cohen, Martin Reddy, Amitabh Varshney

Product Details

Synopsis

"I'm really happy with what Luebke et al. have created. It's exactly what I would want to find on the shelf if I needed to implement some LOD techniques in a game."
—Mark DeLoura, Sony Computer Entertainment America

"This is the first and only book that provides a comprehensive coverage about level of detail. When you are finished reading it, all you will be able to say is "Wow!""
—Dave Eberly, Magic Software, Inc.

"This book will find a choice spot on my bookshelf."
—Will Schroeder, Kitware, Inc.

"This fine book...provides both a treatment of the underlying theory and a valuable practical reference for the graphics practitioner."
—Dr. Frederick P. Brooks, Jr., UNC Chapel Hill

Level of detail (LOD) techniques are increasingly used by professional real-time developers to strike the balance between breathtaking virtual worlds and smooth, flowing animation. Level of Detail for 3D Graphics brings together, for the first time, the mechanisms, principles, practices, and theory needed by every graphics developer seeking to apply LOD methods.

Continuing advances in level of detail management have brought this powerful technology to the forefront of 3D graphics optimization research. This book, written by the very researchers and developers who have built LOD technology, is both a state-of-the-art chronicle of LOD advances and a practical sourcebook that will enable graphics developers from all disciplines to apply these formidable techniques to their own work.

Features:

*Is a complete, practical resource for programmers wishing to incorporate LOD technology into their own systems

*Is animportant reference for professionals in game development, computer animation, information visualization, real-time graphics and simulation, data capture and preview, CAD display, and virtual worlds

*Is accessible to anyone familiar with the essentials of computer science and interactive computer graphics

*Covers the full range of LOD methods, from mesh simplification to error metrics, as well as advanced issues of human perception, temporal detail, and visual fidelity measurement

*Includes an accompanying website rich in supplementary material including source code, tools, 3D models, public domain software, documentation, LOD updates, and more.

Annotation

Level of detail (LOD) techniques are increasingly used by professional real-time developers to strike the balance between breathtaking virtual worlds and smooth, flowing animation. Level of Detail for 3D Graphics brings together, for the first time, the mechanisms, principles, practices, and theory needed by every graphics developer seeking to apply LOD methods.

Continuing advances in level of detail management have brought this powerful technology to the forefront of 3D graphics optimization research. This book, written by the very researchers and developers who have built LOD technology, is both a state-of-the-art chronicle of LOD advances and a practical sourcebook, which will enable graphics developers from all disciplines to apply these formidable techniques to their own work. Is a complete, practical resource for programmers wishing to incorporate LOD technology into their own systems.

Biography

David Luebke David is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Virginia. His principal research interest is the problem of rendering very complex scenes at interactive rates. His research focuses on software techniques such as polygonal simplification and occlusion culling to reduce the complexity of such scenes to manageable levels. Luebke's dissertation research, summarized in a SIGGRAPH '97 paper, introduced a dynamic, view-dependent approach to polygonal simplification for interactive rendering of extremely complex CAD models. He earned his Ph.D. at the University of North Carolina, and his Bachelors degree at the Colorado College.

Martin Reddy Martin is a Graphics Software Engineer at Pixar Animation Studios where he works on graphics optimization techniques. Previously, he worked at SRI International in the area of terrain visualization, involving the real-time display of massive terrain databases distributed over wide-area networks. His research interests include level of detail, visual perception, and computer graphics. His doctoral research involved the application of models of visual perception to real-time computer graphics systems, enabling the selection of level of detail based upon measures of human perception. He received his B.Sc. from the University of Strathclyde and his Ph.D. from the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. He recently served for two years on the Board of Directors of the Web3D Consortium.

Jonathan D. Cohen is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science at The Johns Hopkins University. He earned his Doctoral and Masters degrees from The University of North Carolina atChapel Hill and earned his Bachelors degree from Duke University. His interests include polygonal simplification and other software acceleration techniques, parallel rendering architectures, collision detection, and high-quality interactive computer graphics. Jon's e-mail address is cohen@cs.jhu.edu.

Amitabh Varshney Amitabh is an Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Maryland. His research interests lie in interactive computer graphics, scientific visualization, molecular graphics, and CAD. Varshney has worked on several aspects of level-of-detail simplifications including topology-preserving and topology-reducing simplifications, view-dependent simplifications, parallelization of simplification computation, as well as using triangle strips in multiresolution rendering. Varshney received his PhD and MS from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1994 and 1991 respectively. He received his B. Tech. in Computer Science from the Indian Institute of Technology at Delhi in 1989.

Benjamin Watson Ben is an Assistant Professor in Computer Science at Northwestern University. He earned his doctoral and Masters degrees at Georgia Tech's GVU Center, and his Bachelors degree at the University of California, Irvine. His dissertation focused on user performance effects of dynamic level of detail management. His other research interests include object simplification, medical applications of virtual reality, and 3D user interfaces.

Robert Huebner Robert is the Director of Technology at Nihilistic Software, an independent development studio located in Marin County, California. Prior to co-founding Nihilistic, Robert has worked on a number of successful game titles including "Jedi Knight: Dark Forces 2" for LucasArts Entertainment, "Descent" for Parallax Software, and "Starcraft" for Blizzard Entertainment. Nihilistic's first title, "Vampire The Masquerade: Redemption" was released for the PC in 2000 and sold over 500,000 copies worldwide. Nihilistic's second project will be released in the Winter of 2002 on next-generation game consoles. Robert has spoken on game technology topics at SIGGRAPH, the Game Developer's Conference (GDC), and Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3). He also serves on the advisory board for the Game Developer's Conference and the International Game Developer's Association (IGDA).