Re: Height maps

Bruce Bailey ([email protected])
Tue, 9 May 1995 09:53:06 -0700


On May 9, 9:26am, Len Wanger wrote:
> Subject: Re: Height maps
>
> Why not stick with more standard graphics nomenclature and call it a
quadMesh.
> Also, for lots of terrain people find it handier to use a triangular mesh
> instead of a grid. It gives you roughly the same bandwidth savings, but the
> generation and rendering of the surface is easier as you don't have to worry
> about all of the vertices being co-planar.
>
> My vote would be to add Inventor style tri-meshes in the next release.
>
> This brings up another point. There are a number of useful features that have
> been shot down in this group by people who have to get a product out of the
> door. To appease these pragmatic concerns, but to also get in good features,
> what do people think about trying to have a 1.1 release? I'm concerned about
> having these features lumped in with the 2.0 release.
>

Except that (...and correct me if I'm wrong) the advantage to the node
specified by Jim is that you ONLY SPECIFY Z ELEVATIONS. This cuts down
the amount of data that needs to be transmitted by 2/3 (a single float
per specified point instead of 3 floats per point). This is neither a
tri-mesh or a quad-mesh. This type of node is easily generated from dem
and other forms of publically available terrain data.

Bruce Bailey ([email protected])