osgSim::Impostor Class Reference

Impostor - is a form of Level Of Detail group node which allows both switching between children depending on distance from eye point and image caching. More...

Inheritance diagram for osgSim::Impostor:

Inheritance graph
[legend]

List of all members.

Public Types

typedef std::vector
< osg::ref_ptr
< ImpostorSprite > > 
ImpostorSpriteList

Public Member Functions

 Impostor ()
 Impostor (const Impostor &es, const osg::CopyOp &copyop=osg::CopyOp::SHALLOW_COPY)
 META_Node (osgSim, Impostor)
virtual void traverse (osg::NodeVisitor &nv)
 Traverse downwards : calls children's accept method with NodeVisitor.
void setImpostorThreshold (float distance)
 Set the Impostor threshold distance.
float getImpostorThreshold () const
void setImpostorThresholdToBound (float ratio=1.0f)
 Set the Impostor threshold distance relative to the node's bounding sphere's radius.
ImpostorSpritefindBestImpostorSprite (unsigned int contextID, const osg::Vec3 &currLocalEyePoint) const
 Find the ImposterSprite which fits the current eye point best.
void addImpostorSprite (unsigned int contextID, ImpostorSprite *is)
 Add an ImpostorSprite to the Impostor.
ImpostorSpriteListgetImpostorSpriteList (unsigned int contexID)
 Get the list of ImpostorSprites attached to this Impostor.
const
ImpostorSpriteList
getImpostorSpriteList (unsigned int contexID) const
 Get a const list of ImpostorSprites attached to this const Impostor.
virtual
osg::BoundingSphere 
computeBound () const
 Compute the bounding sphere around Node's geometry or children.

Protected Member Functions

virtual ~Impostor ()
ImpostorSpritecreateImpostorSprite (osgUtil::CullVisitor *cv)

Protected Attributes

osg::buffered_object
< ImpostorSpriteList
_impostorSpriteListBuffer
float _impostorThreshold


Detailed Description

Impostor - is a form of Level Of Detail group node which allows both switching between children depending on distance from eye point and image caching.

The principle behind Imposters is that they cache an image of real geometry and then the image is drawn in subsequent frames instead of the real geometry. It's a bit like a Billboard *but* is updated at runtime and w.r.t view point. By drawing just the texture mapped quad you can cut down scene complexity and improve performance.

For more details have a look at:

http://grail.cs.washington.edu/projects/hic/

The OSG doesn't implement exactly the same technique as above, but its should be a good starting place. The OSG's impostors are much less intrusive since you don't need to restructure your whole scene to use them.

All you need to do to use Impostors is to set up the visible range values for each LOD child of the Impostor, as per osg::LOD, and set an Impostor threshold to tell the renderer at what distance the Impostor's image caching should cut in. The osg::CullVisitor automatically handles all the setting of pre-rendering stages to calculate the required ImpostorSprites (which encapsulates the image cache and quad), and updates them as the view point changes. If you use osg::SceneView/CullVisitor all the complexity of supporting Impostor will be nicely hidden away.

TODO: Various improvements are planned for the Impostor- 1) Estimation of how many frames an ImpostorSprite will be reused, if it won't be used more often than a minimum threshold then do not create ImpostorSprite - use the real geometry. 2) Sharing of texture memory between ImpostorSprites. 3) Simple 3D geometry for ImpostorSprite's rather than Billboarding. 4) Shrinking of the ImpostorSprite size to more closely fit the underlying geometry.


Member Typedef Documentation

typedef std::vector< osg::ref_ptr<ImpostorSprite> > osgSim::Impostor::ImpostorSpriteList


Constructor & Destructor Documentation

osgSim::Impostor::Impostor (  ) 

osgSim::Impostor::Impostor ( const Impostor es,
const osg::CopyOp copyop = osg::CopyOp::SHALLOW_COPY 
) [inline]

virtual osgSim::Impostor::~Impostor (  )  [inline, protected, virtual]


Member Function Documentation

osgSim::Impostor::META_Node ( osgSim  ,
Impostor   
)

virtual void osgSim::Impostor::traverse ( osg::NodeVisitor  )  [virtual]

Traverse downwards : calls children's accept method with NodeVisitor.

Reimplemented from osg::LOD.

void osgSim::Impostor::setImpostorThreshold ( float  distance  )  [inline]

Set the Impostor threshold distance.

For eye points further than this threshold the Imposter is used if appropriate, otherwise the LOD children as chosen as per a standard LOD node.

float osgSim::Impostor::getImpostorThreshold (  )  const [inline]

void osgSim::Impostor::setImpostorThresholdToBound ( float  ratio = 1.0f  )  [inline]

Set the Impostor threshold distance relative to the node's bounding sphere's radius.

ImpostorSprite* osgSim::Impostor::findBestImpostorSprite ( unsigned int  contextID,
const osg::Vec3 currLocalEyePoint 
) const

Find the ImposterSprite which fits the current eye point best.

void osgSim::Impostor::addImpostorSprite ( unsigned int  contextID,
ImpostorSprite is 
)

Add an ImpostorSprite to the Impostor.

ImpostorSpriteList& osgSim::Impostor::getImpostorSpriteList ( unsigned int  contexID  )  [inline]

Get the list of ImpostorSprites attached to this Impostor.

const ImpostorSpriteList& osgSim::Impostor::getImpostorSpriteList ( unsigned int  contexID  )  const [inline]

Get a const list of ImpostorSprites attached to this const Impostor.

virtual osg::BoundingSphere osgSim::Impostor::computeBound (  )  const [virtual]

Compute the bounding sphere around Node's geometry or children.

This method is automatically called by getBound() when the bounding sphere has been marked dirty via dirtyBound().

Reimplemented from osg::LOD.

ImpostorSprite* osgSim::Impostor::createImpostorSprite ( osgUtil::CullVisitor cv  )  [protected]


Member Data Documentation

osg::buffered_object<ImpostorSpriteList> osgSim::Impostor::_impostorSpriteListBuffer [mutable, protected]

float osgSim::Impostor::_impostorThreshold [protected]


The documentation for this class was generated from the following file:
Generated at Sun Oct 14 02:12:46 2007 for the OpenSceneGraph by doxygen 1.5.3.