3D Engine Design for Virtual Globes

Supported with code examples and the authors? real-world experience, this book offers the first guide to engine design and rendering algorithms for virtual globe applications like Google Earth and NASA World Wind. The content is also useful for general graphics and games, especially planet and massive-world engines. With pragmatic advice throughout, it is essential reading for practitioners, researchers, and hobbyists in these areas, and can be used as a text for a special topics course in computer graphics.

Topics covered include:

• Rendering globes, planet-sized terrain, and vector data
• Multithread resource management
• Out-of-core algorithms
• Shader-based renderer design

Introduction. FUNDAMENTALS: Math Foundations. Renderer Design. Globe Rendering. PRECISION: Vertex Transform Precision. Depth Buffer Precision. VECTOR DATA: Vector Data and Polylines. Polygons. Billboards. Exploiting Parallelism in Resource Preparation. TERRAIN: Terrain Basics. Massive Terrain Rendering. Geometry Clipmapping. Chunked LOD. Appendix. Bibliography. Index.

Patrick Cozzi is a senior software developer on the 3D team at Analytical Graphics, Inc. (AGI). He is a contributor to SIGGRAPH and the Game Engine Gems series. Before joining AGI, he worked on storage systems in IBM’s Extreme Blue internship program at the Almaden Research Lab, interned with IBM’s z/VM operating system team, and interned with the chipset validation group at Intel. He earned a master’s degree in computer and information science from the University of Pennsylvania and a bachelor’s degree in computer science from Pennsylvania State University.

Kevin Ring is the lead architect of AGI Components at Analytical Graphics, Inc. In his software development career, he has worked on a wide range of software systems, from class libraries to web applications to 3D game engines to interplanetary spacecraft trajectory design systems. He earned a bachelor’s degree in computer science from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.