This whitepaper discusses the methods for Level of Detail available in OpenSceneGraph and how each works and should be used.
Topics include DISTANCE_FROM_EYE_POINT and PIXEL_SIZE_ON_SCREEN mode, screen space bounding spheres, creating lower LODs, sparse LODs and why you can’t have them, PageLOD and the DatabasePager, ProxyNode, Imposters and OcclusionQueryNode.
This whitepaper explains OpenSceneGraph’s VirtualPlanertBuilder (and OSGDEM), its advantages, the build process, the theory and structure of a VPB-built database, and how OpenSceneGraph’s DatabasePager manages the loading and unloading of this database. Also mentioned are optimization, data sources and input/output formats and how to place objects on the terrain.