Smooth Schedule of Large-scale Terrain Visualization from External Memory

The paper proposed a smooth schedule algorithm to render terrain data out-of-core. The terrain data was organized as a quad-tree with Z-order filling curve, which preserved the data continuity and improved the schedule efficiency. A schedule strategy basing memory allocation was designed to support the stable frame rate terrain rendering. Controllable schedule area, instead of the view frustum culling, was applied to achieve the balance between the in-core memory requirements and scheduling time. A pre-estimated approach was adopted to smooth the data exchange. The algorithm achieved a smooth schedule and successfully avoided the slow or jerky phenomena, usually caused by inefficient and unsmooth schedule. By comparing with traditional methods, the algorithm proposed is feasible and efficient in out-of-core terrain visualization.