QAEB Tracing for Procedural Height Fields

If one assumes that a certain error (e.g., pixel-sized) in the ray-surface intersection is acceptable, one can directly ray-trace a procedurally-defined height field with essentially perfect level of detail. This is really just a Perlin Hypertexture with LOD.

The QAEB algorithm, complete with an implmentation in C, appears in our book.

(MojoWorld uses QAEB tracing for reflections and refractions.)

For kicks, you might try to fuse the stereo pair below. Here at home, I can stick my nose right up to the screen, concentrate the gaze of each eye on a certain feature, and draw slowly back to get an in-focus stereo view. It'll only work, methinks, if the pair comes up on your screen with a separation about the same as that between your eyes. (Works at this resolution on my monitor!)

A stereo pair of a QAEB-traced terrain.