Distance preserving terrain simplification - An experimental study

The terrain surface simplification problem has been studied extensively, as it has important applications in geographic information systems and computer graphics. The goal is to obtain a new surface that is combinatorially as simple as possible, while maintaining a prescribed degree of similarity with the original input surface. In this paper, we propose new algorithms for simplifying terrain surfaces, designed specifically for a new measure of quality based on preserving inter-point (geodesic) distances. We are motivated by various geographic information system and mapping applications. We have implemented the suggested algorithms and give experimental evidence of their effectiveness in simplifying terrains according to the suggested measure of quality. We experimentally compare their performance with that of another leading simplification method.