GPU Gems 3

Chapter 1. Generating Complex Procedural Terrains Using the GPU

Ryan Geiss NVIDIA Corporation

Introduction

Procedural terrains have traditionally been limited to height fields that are generated by the CPU and rendered by the GPU. However, the serial processing nature of the CPU is not well suited to generating extremely complex terrains—a highly parallel task. Plus, the simple height fields that the CPU can process do not offer interesting terrain features (such as caves or overhangs).

To generate procedural terrains with a high level of complexity, at interactive frame rates, we look to the GPU. By utilizing several new DirectX 10 capabilities such as the geometry shader (GS), stream output, and rendering to 3D textures, we can use the GPU to quickly ...