
GPU Tessellation: We Still Have
a LOD of Te rrain to Cover
Ant
´
onio Ramires Fernandes and Bruno Oliveira
10.1 Introduction
Terrain rendering has come a long way from the days where all data fit in the graphics
memory to algorithms that deal with massive amounts of information that do not
fit in the system’s RAM. Nowadays, a full-blown terrain engine has to deal with out-
of-core issues: a first step of the level of detail (LOD) might happen in the CPU to
determine which data goes to the GPU, and a second step of LOD may be required
to draw all those triangles at interactive rates.
In this chapter we are going to explore how OpenGL 4.x can boost performance ...