NASA-AMMOS / NASA-AMMOS/3DTilesRendererJS

Add skipLevels and skipScreenSpaceErrorFactor

Open
#1,614 3 comments 0 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub

Nobody has claimed this yet.

enhancement
Dominant language
JavaScript
Stars
2.5k
Forks
416
Avg merge
17h 52m
Merged PRs (30d)
37

Description

Description

When loadAncestors is enabled, the renderer continuously loads parent ancestor tiles as backups so that there is content to display while high-precision child tiles are being loaded. The current logic adds all ancestor tiles containing content to the download queue, which can result in a large number of unnecessary downloads when there are many intermediate layers. However, if loadAncestors is disabled, there can be a long visual gap before the high-precision child tiles finish loading, during which no suitable fallback content is available to display.
Therefore, a compromise is needed: allowing the renderer to skip certain intermediate levels while still loading some ancestor fallback tiles. This can provide a smoother visual transition while reducing loading time and memory usage.

Solution

Cesium's skipLevels and skipScreenSpaceErrorFactor can solve this problem, maybe we can also add these options in the traverseFunction

Alternatives

Currently, if current level is 1 and target level is 6, with loadAncestors = true, the current loading logic is 1->2->3->4->5->6, with loadAncestors = false, it would be 1->6

If set skipLevels = 1, the loading logic will be 1->3->5->6

Additional context

No response

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start at the renderer's traverseFunction and review how ancestor tiles are added to the download queue. Compare the requested skipLevels and skipScreenSpaceErrorFactor behavior with the linked Cesium 3D Tileset options. Done means intermediate levels can be skipped while selected ancestor fallback tiles still load, including the 1→6 example described in the issue.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
javascript, three.js
Domain
computer-graphics, performance
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Activity status
Quiet
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
42/100

Get new issues in your inbox

A short digest of beginner-friendly GitHub issues.