View-Dependent Progressive Transmission Method for 3D Building Models

Abstract

Complex 3D building models, because of their huge data volume, almost always result in transmission congestion, which leads to poor user experience. To reduce the real-time transmission pressure, a novel view-dependent progressive transmission method was developed. With this method, only a small amount of transmitted data is necessary to achieve an acceptable rendering effect when the viewpoint changes. The method involves two stages. A preprocessing stage simplifies the building model using a multi-level vertex clustering algorithm. The local mesh in each clustering unit is organized into a node tree where each node includes a vertex and its related triangles. The building model is finally reorganized into a node forest. In the reconstruction stage, all root nodes are transmitted first to build a basic model. Their descendant nodes are then requested and transmitted according to viewpoint information to refine the building model during user interaction. The experimental results show that this method can effectively improve the transmission and reconstruction efficiency of 3D building models.