Efficient visualization of a large voxelized volume

Posted by Alejandro Piad on Game Development See other posts from Game Development or by Alejandro Piad
Published on 2012-07-10T13:57:10Z Indexed on 2012/07/10 15:26 UTC
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Lets consider a large voxelized volume stored in an oct-tree or any other convenient structure. This volume represents, for instance, a landscape, where each block is either empty (air), or it has an specific material that will be later used to apply a texture. Voxels that are next to each other represent connected sections of the surface.

What I need is an algorithm to generate a mesh from this voxels that represents the volume, with the following caracteristics:

  • All the "holes" in the voxelized volume are correct.
  • All the connections are correct, i.e. seamless.
  • The surface appears smooth.

In a broad sense, I want to somehow preserve the surface topology, meaning that connected sections remain connected in the resulting mesh and that the surface has a curvature that responds to the voxels topology. Imagine trying to render the Minecraft world but getting the mountain ladders to be smooth instead of blocky.

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