Feature article - dPVS: an occlusion culling system for massive dynamic environments

A platform-independent occlusion culling library for dynamic environments, dPVS, can benefit such applications as CAD and modeling tools, time-varying simulations, and computer games. Visibility optimization is currently the most effective technique for improving rendering performance in complex 3D environments. The primary reason for this is that during each frame the pixel processing subsystem needs to determine the visibility of each pixel individually. Currently, rendering performance in larger scenes is input sensitive, and most of the processing time is wasted on rendering geometry not visible in the final image. Here we concentrate on real-time visualization using mainstream graphics hardware that has a z-buffer as a de facto standard for hidden surface removal. In an ideal system only the complexity of the geometry actually visible on the screen would significantly impact rendering time - 3D application performance should be output sensitive.