An implementation of terrain geomorphing in the vertex shader for synthetic planetary surfaces

Thesis (M. Eng.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2008.

Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Colagiovanni, Lawrence W. (Lawrence William)
Other Authors: Bryan Wasileski and Jovan Popović.
Format: Thesis
Language:eng
Published: Massachusetts Institute of Technology 2009
Subjects:
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/45990
_version_ 1826191976989458432
author Colagiovanni, Lawrence W. (Lawrence William)
author2 Bryan Wasileski and Jovan Popović.
author_facet Bryan Wasileski and Jovan Popović.
Colagiovanni, Lawrence W. (Lawrence William)
author_sort Colagiovanni, Lawrence W. (Lawrence William)
collection MIT
description Thesis (M. Eng.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2008.
first_indexed 2024-09-23T09:04:15Z
format Thesis
id mit-1721.1/45990
institution Massachusetts Institute of Technology
language eng
last_indexed 2024-09-23T09:04:15Z
publishDate 2009
publisher Massachusetts Institute of Technology
record_format dspace
spelling mit-1721.1/459902019-04-10T20:33:07Z An implementation of terrain geomorphing in the vertex shader for synthetic planetary surfaces Colagiovanni, Lawrence W. (Lawrence William) Bryan Wasileski and Jovan Popović. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. Thesis (M. Eng.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2008. Includes bibliographical references (p. 55). The purpose of this research is to develop the three-dimensional models of planetary surfaces which can be used in the test environments for the Vision-Based Navigation Systems' (VBNS) terrain recognition and navigation algorithms. The VBNS will fly a trajectory over the planet, taking pictures along the flight and dynamically updating the imagery passed to the VBNS. The pictures will be generated based on the current camera angle and attitude. Testing in this more realistic, arbitrary planetary environment will help ensure the most robust algorithms for the VBNS. A terrain generation tool is implemented that allows users to create synthetic planetary terrains. Users are able to arbitrarily place terrain features (e.g. craters, mountains, and boulders), textures, and lighting to create realistic planetary surfaces. Creating these complex, three dimensional models presents its own problem: a significantly larger amount of data has to be processed. To solve this problem, geomorphing is implemented and incorporated into the simulations. Geomorphing refers to the process of seamlessly switching between different levels of-detail of data, which are data sets with different resolutions; the goal is to display the appropriate level-of-detail of data based on where the VBNS is currently located. Simply switching between the different data sets causes discontinuities and visual anomalies, which affect the algorithms of the VBNS. Therefore, the switching has to be done seamlessly, so that the VBNS cannot tell there was a change in the data sets being rendered. The test results indicate that geomorphing helped to reduce the discontinuities in the simulations that occur when simply switching between the different levels-of-detail. by Lawrence W. Colagiovanni. M.Eng. 2009-06-30T16:56:29Z 2009-06-30T16:56:29Z 2008 2008 Thesis http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/45990 351452410 eng M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission. http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582 55 p. application/pdf Massachusetts Institute of Technology
spellingShingle Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.
Colagiovanni, Lawrence W. (Lawrence William)
An implementation of terrain geomorphing in the vertex shader for synthetic planetary surfaces
title An implementation of terrain geomorphing in the vertex shader for synthetic planetary surfaces
title_full An implementation of terrain geomorphing in the vertex shader for synthetic planetary surfaces
title_fullStr An implementation of terrain geomorphing in the vertex shader for synthetic planetary surfaces
title_full_unstemmed An implementation of terrain geomorphing in the vertex shader for synthetic planetary surfaces
title_short An implementation of terrain geomorphing in the vertex shader for synthetic planetary surfaces
title_sort implementation of terrain geomorphing in the vertex shader for synthetic planetary surfaces
topic Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.
url http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/45990
work_keys_str_mv AT colagiovannilawrencewlawrencewilliam animplementationofterraingeomorphinginthevertexshaderforsyntheticplanetarysurfaces
AT colagiovannilawrencewlawrencewilliam implementationofterraingeomorphinginthevertexshaderforsyntheticplanetarysurfaces