Optimized View Frustum Culling Algorithms for Bounding Boxes

Ulf Assarsson and Tomas Möller
Chalmers University of Technology

This paper appears in issue Volume 5, Number 1.
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Abstract

This paper presents optimizations for faster view frustum culling (VFC) for axis-aligned bounding box (AABB) and oriented bounding box (OBB) hierarchies. We exploit frame-to-frame coherency by caching and by comparing against previous distances and rotation angles. By using an octant test, we potentially halve the number of plane tests needed, and we also evaluate masking, which is a well-known technique. The optimizations can be used for arbitrary bounding volumes, but we present only results for ABBs and OBBs. In particular, we provide solutions which are 2-11 times faster than other VFC algorithms for AABBs and OBBs, depending on the circumstances.

Author Information

Ulf Assarsson, Sweden uffe@ce.chalmers.se

Tomas Möller, Sweden tompa@acm.org

BibTeX Entry

@article{AssarssonMoller00,
  author = "Ulf Assarsson and Tomas Möller",
  title = "Optimized View Frustum Culling Algorithms for Bounding Boxes",
  journal = "journal of graphics tools",
  volume = "5",
  number = "1",
  pages = "9-22",
  year = "2000",
}