Simplifying Terrain Models and Measuring Terrain Model Accuracy

We describe a set of TIN simplification methods that enable the use of the triangulation hierarchy introduced by Kirkpatrick and modified by de Berg and Dobrindt. This triangulation hierarchy can be used to form a terrain model combining areas with varying levels of detail. One variant of the delete simplification method formed simplifications with accuracy close to the greedy method. We also investigated different variables that can be used to measure the accuracy of our simplified terrain models. Although the use of derivative statistics did not significantly alter our evaluation of the performance of our simplification methods, we recommend that any future comparisons should be aware of these alternative variables of surface characterization.

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