A HIERARCHICAL RADIOSITY PLATFORM USING EFFICIENT DATA-STRUCTURES ANDVRML-97

The constant growth of hierarchical radiosity (HR) model number and co mplexity, leads us into defining a well-balanced platform, answering t o the diversity of their exigencies. In this paper, we present new hie rarchical data structures: partitioning trees and meta-hierarchies, Th ey allow one to elaborate local and autonomous hierarchies (crucial in the use of pre-computed hierarchical objects and dynamic radiosity mo dels), and permit one to economize significant memory space, and at a lower level, CPU resources. We will show how using VRML 97 language an swers, in an efficient and universal way, to the requirement of data s torage, environment description, and interactive visualization for HR. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.