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Combining 6 height fields to describe a volume

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Hello,

To save memory requirements and also some computation requirements the 
following idea could be interesting:

Instead of describing a volume with voxels in full 3D, instead 6 height 
fields are used.

The volume is like a box/cube, it has 6 sides.

Each side receives a height field.

This reminds me a little bit of the Terminator 2 technique were cube mapping 
was used to make the terminator shiny (?!?).

Instead the height fields describe from their perspective/side how deep the 
first voxel is.

By combining 6 height fields and applieing some logic it should be possible 
to determine if a voxel is present or not at a certain coordinate by 
simplieing examining all 6 height fields.

The height fields work or could work like "boolean operations".

If any of the height fields "overrule" the others than that's what happens, 
it gets overruled.

For example the rule could be: if one of the six height fields indicates 
that the voxel is empty/hull/transparent then that's what it should be, it 
overrules all others.

By coming these 6 height fields the volume could also have some gaps here 
and there, so it doesn't necessarily have to be a shell only.

For visualization purposes these height fields could also be overlayed with 
texture fields/maps.

For example if the height fields/volume is turned/visualized into 3D 
boxes/pixels/voxels then each voxel/box's side could receive a color from 
one of the height fields.

Additional logic could be used to indicate if a certain height field is to 
be used yes or no. For example the back and the front height/texture fields 
could be used for front and back panel of the box. Depending on surrounding 
voxels or logic a certain choice could be made to make it more visually 
pleasing and could be experimented with.

Also some smoothing of voxels/boxes could occur if they are within a certain 
color range which could be considered part of the same material/sub object, 
perhaps even normals could be calculated from it to smooth it even further.

A special c/c++ or delphi oo class could be made which simply queries the 
object/volume to know if a certain coordinate has a voxel yes or no and what 
it's color could be.

To the user the object appears as if it was a volume, but inside it simply 
queries the height fields + some logic to come to a conclusion/decision.

I myself don't really have a good working ray tracing engine or volume 
rendering engine, so these ideas have little value to me but they could be 
interesting to others.

I'm also quite tired *sigh* and might not have the energy or time to spent 
on researching this further, but perhaps this idea could inspire others to 
give it a try.

Perhaps I might try myself as well ;)

The hope is that this might bring "volume rendering" for games a step closer 
;)

Bye,
  Skybuck. 

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Combining 6 height fields to describe a volume "Skybuck Flying" <Windows7IsOK@DreamPC2006.com> - 2011-12-26 10:27 +0100
  Re: Combining 6 height fields to describe a volume "Skybuck Flying" <Windows7IsOK@DreamPC2006.com> - 2011-12-26 11:11 +0100
    Re: Combining 6 height fields to describe a volume Nicolas Bonneel <nicolas.bonneel@wwwwwwwwanadoo.fr> - 2011-12-26 15:18 +0100
      Re: Combining 6 height fields to describe a volume "Skybuck Flying" <Windows7IsOK@DreamPC2006.com> - 2011-12-26 17:03 +0100

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