Multiresolution attributes for tessellated meshes

Abstract

We present a novel representation for storing sub-triangle signals, such as colors, normals, or displacements directly with the triangle mesh. Signal samples are stored as guided by hardware-tessellation patterns. Thus, we can directly render from our representation by assigning signal samples to attributes of vertices generated by the hardware tessellator. Contrary to texture mapping, our approach does not require any atlas generation, chartification, or uv-unwrapping. Thus, it does not suffer from texture-related artifacts, such as discontinuities across chart boundaries or distortion. Moreover, our approach allows specifying the optimal sampling rate adaptively on a per triangle basis, resulting in significant memory savings for most signal types. We propose a signal optimal approach for converting arbitrary signals, including existing assets with textures or mesh colors, into our representation. Further, we provide efficient algorithms for mip-mapping, bi- and tri-linear interpolation directly in our representation. Our approach is optimally suited for displacement mapping: it automatically generates crack-free, view-dependent displacement mapped models enabling continuous level-of-detail.