Dynamic Terrain for Multiuser Real-Time Environments

Despite the pursuit for increased realism in VR training simulations and massively multiplayer online games, we find little deployed capability to modify terrain. Usually, terrain is stored in a static database and then preprocessed to support multiple levels of detail and to rectify features with the ground. Also, dynamic-terrain research has concentrated on graphics simulations for single users; we´ve found no research on systems that can support 500 or more user systems. Many obstacles to implementing large-scale dynamic-terrain simulations are hardware based such simulations need large amounts of memory and computing power. However, recent advances in computer hardware can help ameliorate these problems. In particular, high-performance computing clusters (HPCCs) offer an expandable set of computing elements, large amounts of memory and storage, and high-speed connections that remove many of the hardware limitations. Additionally, the industry´s movement toward multi- or many-core machines indicates that research done today on high-performance computers (HPCs) could find its way into future commodity systems.