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Interactive display and visualization of large geometric and textured models is becoming a fundamental capability. There are numerous application areas, including games, movies, CAD, virtual prototyping, and scientific visualization. One of observations about geometric models used in interactive applications is that their model complexity continues to increase because of fundamental advances in 3D modeling, simulation, and data capture technologies.

I ncreasingly, researchers and practitioners have been using 3D models in a number of different areas. Boeing has more than 25 terabytes of online and near-line 3D geometry describing just the shape of its commercial airplane products. Archived model storage reaches into the hundreds of terabytes. Other companies that build physical products such as automobiles, appliances, aerospace vehicles, buildings, and so on rely on 3D geometry as the master for their product data information. The gaming and entertainment industries generate huge amounts of 3D geometry and visual environments that millions of people view daily. Three-dimensional visualization techniques have become valuable for people who try to understand and analyze vast quantities of data or derive relationships from seemingly unrelated sources. The number of people who need to visually comprehend 3D models of physical products has increased dramatically. In industrial settings, engineers and designers were often the only people who needed to view complex 3D models. That situation has changed. Salespeople rely on 3D mock-ups to show customers how a new product will look. Assembly mechanics look at 3D models to understand how parts will fit. Maintainability experts explore part assembly and disassembly sequences using 3D images augmented by haptic feedback. 1 Better software, more available storage, and increased computing power support the user base's expansion. The "geometry software" industry has matured to the point where, while some computation problems and long-term data viability still remain, 2 geometry kernels-such as Parasolid (http://www.

Sung-eui Yoon KAIST ‡ Figure 1: Examples of massive models. Landscape Model consisting of more than one billion polygons (courtesy Saarland University); Double Eagle Oil Tanker CAD model consisting of about 82 million triangles and taking more than 3GB data (courtesy University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill); Richtmyer-Meshkov isosurface consisting of about 472M triangles (courtesy CRS4 and Lawrence Livermore National Labs); St. Matthew 0.25mm laser scanning model consisting of about 372M triangles (courtesy CRS4 and Digital Michelangelo Project)