Sparse voxel octree
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A sparse voxel octree (SVO) is a 3D computer graphics rendering technique using a raycasting or sometimes a ray tracing approach into an octree data representation.
This article relies largely or entirely on a single source. (June 2010) |
The technique generally relies on generating and processing the hull of points (sparse voxels) which are visible, or may be visible, given the resolution and size of the screen.[1] There are two main advantages to the technique. The first is that only pixels that will be displayed are computed, with the screen resolution limiting the level of detail required; this limits computational cost during rendering. The second is that interior voxels (those fully enclosed by other voxels) need not be included in the 3D data set; this limits the amount of 3D voxel data (and thus storage space) required for realistic, high-resolution digital models and/or environments.
The basic advantage of octrees is that, as a hierarchical data structure, they need not be explored to their full depth. This means that a system can extract a small subset of voxels as they are needed. In addition, octrees permit smoothing of the underlying data, to help with antialiasing.
It is, however, a generally less well developed technique than standard polygon-based rasterisation schemes.