Abstract
Virtual Reality is a rising and flourishing new area with widespread applications, such as the walk-through of Virtual Scene (museum, shopping mall, amusement park), driving simulations (flight, ship, automobile), and electronic entertainment. Because the computation power of personal computers is incredibly increasing and the low-cost 3D graphics accelerators got popular, there is a tendency to port the Virtual Reality system from high-end graphics workstations to popular personal computer platforms. In this thesis, we discuss the design and implementation of a 3D terrain model navigator system on a personal computer. By using the hierarchical terrain model, real-time simplification algorithm, multi-resolution level of detail, and texture mapping techniques, we have successfully designed and implemented a 3D terrain model navigator system capable of displaying complex terrain on the low-cost personal computer platform.