Adaptive Hardware-accelerated Terrain Tessellation

In this master thesis report, a scheme for adaptive hardware tessellation is presented. The scheme uses an offline processing approach where a height map is analyzed in terms of curvature and the result is stored in a resource called density map. This density map is then bound as a resource to the hardware tessellation stage and used to bias the tessellation factor for a given edge. The scheme is implemented inside Frostbite 2 engine by DICE and produces good results while making the heightfield rendering more efficient.

The performance gain can be used to increase the rendering detail, allowing for better visual appearance for the terrain mesh. The scheme is currently implemented for hardware tessellation but could also be used for software terrain mesh generation. The implemention works satisfactory and produces good results with a reasonable speed.