Ray-Casted BlockMaps: Interactive Remote Exploration of Massive Cityscapes

Category: Applications •

Jul 27, 2009

The BlockMap data structure is an efficient and compact representation which stores in a small texture all the information to render city blocks. Developed at the Visual Computing Laboratory - CNR, it encodes color, normal and ambient occlusion term for the vertical facades and sloped roofs of the buildings. Using modern OpenGL and GLSL for preprocessing and ray-casted visualization, the BlockMap and its evolution are used to build a realtime multiresolution renderer for large urban models.