Dynamic Tessellation (Triangulation)

What is Dynamic Tessellation? Good question. Now the answer from the completely reliable source Wikipedia:

“In the subject of computer graphics, tessellation techniques are often used to manage datasets of polygons and divide them into suitable structures for rendering. Normally, at least for real-time rendering, the data is tessellated into triangles, which is sometimes referred to as triangulation.“1

Triangulation, for those that do not know, could sound like something painful or a mathematical process that Big Brother (“they” made me capitalize it) uses to follow your suspicious activities from day to day. Which in this case, thankfully, is neither.

Now another answer from a slightly less reliable source, me:

“Triangulation is the process of breaking down geometry to its simplest form, a triangle, while still retaining the original shape.”

While tessellation and triangulation are all nifty and useful, they are rather boring. And like everything in advertising, just adding a catch word in front of the name makes it all shiny and better. Everybody wants the new “Ultra Dynamic HD Dish-soap.” But, turning ordinary Tessellation into Dynamic Tessellation is a whole new thing.

Now I should mention why tessellation is useful. In order to create the geometry necessary for sculpting, the polygons need to be divided. And it’s a relatively simple and automatic process for the computer to divide three point and four point polygons.

Now the power of “Dynamic” shows here. Let’s say you want to sculpt a stingray. So you get the overall shape the way you like it and now you want to add a few small details, such as eyes, a mouth, gills, etc. In a traditionally subdivided (Tessellated) sculpt, the entire stingray would need to be divided to the appropriate resolution needed to capture the details. But with Dynamic Tessellation, only the areas that require additional detail get subdivided, leaving the rest of the stingray alone.

Sculptris – A Dynamic Tessellation Example from Ignertia on Vimeo.

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tessellation