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Computer Graphics International 2003 (CGI'03)   p. 202
Ray Tracing Height Fields
Huamin Qu, State University of New York at Stony Brook
Feng Qiu, State University of New York at Stony Brook
Nan Zhang, State University of New York at Stony Brook
Arie Kaufman, State University of New York at Stony Brook
Ming Wan, The Boeing Company

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DOI Bookmark: http://doi.ieeecomputersociety.org/10.1109/CGI.2003.1214467
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Abstract
We present a novel surface reconstruction algorithm which can directly reconstruct surfaces with different levels of smoothness in one framework from height fields using 3D discrete grid ray tracing. Our algorithm exploits the 2.5D nature of the elevation data and the regularity of the rectangular grid from which the height field surface is sampled. Based on this reconstruction method, we also develop a hybrid rendering method which has the features of both rasterization and ray tracing. This hybrid method is designed to take advantage of GPUs newly available flexibility and processing power.
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Index Terms- depth image, height field, hardware acceleration, layered depth image, ray tracing, terrain rendering Citation:  Huamin Qu, Feng Qiu, Nan Zhang, Arie Kaufman, Ming Wan, "Ray Tracing Height Fields," cgi, p. 202,  Computer Graphics International 2003 (CGI'03),  2003