Shader Based Polygon Stitching and Its Application in Deformable Terrain Simulation

In this paper, we present a new, shader based polygon stitching algorithm that takes full advantage of the geometry shader. Based on this algorithm, we propose a novel method to simulate deformable terrain, particularly the simulation of tire tracks left on the soft terrain such as snow, mud, or sand. Existing methods for simulating deformable terrain include texture decals, bump mapping, displacement mapping, and voxel based methods, but they all have drawbacks. In our algorithm, a pre-modeled tire track is stitched with the terrain mesh on GPU, behind a running vehicle. Compared with previous methods, our method generates more realistic terrain deformation while using fewer polygons. The proposed shader based polygon stitching algorithm can be used to simulate other destructible environments.