A Method for Storing Clustering Information of Model Simplification in GPUs

Abstract

A vertex-clustering simplification is a kind of model simplification. It is difficult for the vertex-clustering simplification to simplify complex models in real-time, although it is known as a very fast method. In addition, it is also difficult for the vertex-clustering simplification to control the number of faces. It synthesizes vertices in each cluster. Therefore, models sometimes consist of the unexpected number of faces. In recent years, Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) have grown so significantly in performance that both the computational speed and the computational accuracy improve spectacularly. GPUs have programmable units such as vertex shaders and geometry shaders. With shaders, GPUs can be used not only for graphics rendering but also for general purposes. In this paper, we propose a real-time simplification algorithm for complex models of 3D objects by using a GPU whose performance gets better these days. First, vertex-clustering information is stored to video memory on a GPU. Next, the faces are reduced by the vertex-clustering information using a programmable shader, depending on the level of detail which a user defined. We also discuss a method to control the number of faces easily.