Are you an EPFL student looking for a semester project?
Work with us on data science and visualisation projects, and deploy your project as an app on top of Graph Search.
Concept
Binary space partitioning
Summary
In computer science, binary space partitioning (BSP) is a method for space partitioning which recursively subdivides a Euclidean space into two convex sets by using hyperplanes as partitions. This process of subdividing gives rise to a representation of objects within the space in the form of a tree data structure known as a BSP tree.
Binary space partitioning was developed in the context of 3D computer graphics in 1969. The structure of a BSP tree is useful in rendering because it can efficiently give spatial information about the objects in a scene, such as objects being ordered from front-to-back with respect to a viewer at a given location. Other applications of BSP include: performing geometrical operations with shapes (constructive solid geometry) in CAD, collision detection in robotics and 3D video games, ray tracing, and other applications that involve the handling of complex spatial scenes.
Binary space partitioning is a generic process of recursively dividing a scene into two until the partitioning satisfies one or more requirements. It can be seen as a generalization of other spatial tree structures such as k-d trees and quadtrees, one where hyperplanes that partition the space may have any orientation, rather than being aligned with the coordinate axes as they are in k-d trees or quadtrees. When used in computer graphics to render scenes composed of planar polygons, the partitioning planes are frequently chosen to coincide with the planes defined by polygons in the scene.
The specific choice of partitioning plane and criterion for terminating the partitioning process varies depending on the purpose of the BSP tree. For example, in computer graphics rendering, the scene is divided until each node of the BSP tree contains only polygons that can be rendered in arbitrary order. When back-face culling is used, each node, therefore, contains a convex set of polygons, whereas when rendering double-sided polygons, each node of the BSP tree contains only polygons in a single plane.
Official source
About this result
This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.