NDVI-based vegetation rendering

The area of terrain rendering has seen great improvements both in rendering performance and image quality. The latest terrain rendering algorithms efficiently utilize the capabilities of actual programmable. graphics hardware in order to achieve real-time visualizations of large terrain models. Despite these advances, a remotely sensed dataset will not look realistic unless the terrain model also accounts for the vegetation. We present an extension of the C-LOD technique that is able to enrich large GIS scenes with forestal detail by rendering trees and bushes in a view-dependent way. The placement of the trees is derived automatically from real NDVI data. We also present a NDVI based texture splatting method in order to render the underlying grass layer in a realistic way.