A new fractal-based approach for 3D visualization of mountains in VRML standard

Several factors currently limit the size of Virtual Reality Modeling Language (VRML) models that can be effectively visualized over the Web. Main factors include network bandwidth limitations and inefficient encoding schemes for geometry and its associated properties. The delays caused by these factors reduce the attractiveness of VRML usage for a large range of virtual reality models, CAD data, and scientific visualizations. To solve this problem, we have tried to decrease the size of data by deploying fractal geometry in VRML standard. A novel approach is proposed for generating a “fractal mountain” using a random Midpoint-Displacement method in VRML standard. Our VRML 2.0 implementation, which is based on two newly defined nodes, TriangleGrid and FractMountain, and uses PROTO mechanism and Java in the Script nodes for the logic, is presented too. It is shown that our approach is more flexible and memory efficient than other approaches for computing mountain structures. Besides,...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2004
• Where: GRAPHITE
• Authors: Mohsen Sharifi, Fatemeh Hashemi Golpaygani, Mehdi Esmaeli
• Keywords: GRAPHITE 2004, Virtual Reality, VRML, VRML Standard