Real-time rendering of photo-textured terrain height fields

Interactive tridimensional visualization of terrain models can be found in geographical information systems and computer games. Both applications share the need for high performance algorithms that are tailored to produce textured images in interactive time, say at least 5 frames per second. We propose and analyze the extension of a well known ray casting algorithm to the case where the view plane is not vertical. Three efficient algorithms are presented and compared. Experimental results are shown and conclusions are made.