10. Terrain and Picking

This chapter presents a method for drawing expansive outdoor scenes with rolling terrain by reusing many of the 3D graphics concepts and sample classes introduced in prior chapters. Approaches for 3D terrain rendering apply to any application for visualizing large data sets, including medical imaging and molecular modeling. Large data sets require special handling within 3D applications. Partitioning data into subsets suitable for access by the graphics processing unit (GPU) is necessary.

This chapter also introduces a technique called picking to detect user interaction with 3D geometry. When a user touches the screen, what 3D objects are under the user’s finger? What terrain location is touched?

Terrain Implementation ...

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