3D Isocontours (Eurographics 2010 Short-Paper)

Isocontours (also isopleths, isolines, level sets) are commonly used to visualize real-valued data defined over a 2D plane according to a set of given isovalues. To support the 3D landscape metaphor for information visualization, a 3D stepped terrain can be derived by lifting and extruding isolines to their particular isovalue, but typically requires triangulation of the resulting surface representation in a preprocessing step. We present a concept and rendering technique for triangle-based terrain models that provide interactive, adaptive generation and visualization of such stepped terrains without preprocessing. Our fully hardware-accelerated rendering technique creates additional step geometry for each triangle intersecting an iso-plane on-the-fly. Further, an additional interpolation schema facilitates smooth transition between established 3D terrain visualization and its stepped variant.

http://www.hpi.uni-potsdam.de/doellner/publications/year/2010/1049/GTD10.html

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• 3D-Isocontours
• Real-time Rendering
• Information visualization