Real-time simulation of autonomous vehicles on planet-sized continuous LOD terrains

Abstract

Real-Time visualization of interactive simulation environments using large datasets of height fields became feasible using current off the shelf graphics hardware. Our approach provides continuous level of detail rendering of high detailed, planet sized terrains using restricted quad-trees without re-sampling data points. The presented method preserves the original planet coordinate frame of the data gathered from the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter with 128 samples/degree resolution for vehicle simulation purposes. Furthermore the algorithm avoids discontinuities at the block boundaries occurring at latitudes.