Abstract: The existing visualization method in the virtual globe mainly uses the projection grid to organize the ocean grid. This special grid organization has the defects in reflecting the difference characteristics of different ocean areas. The method of global ocean visualization based on global discrete grid can make up the defect of the projection grid method by matching with the discrete space of the virtual globe, so it is more suitable for the virtual ocean surface simulation application.But the available global discrete grids method has many problems which limiting its application such as the low efficiency of rendering and loading, the need of repairing grid crevices. To this point, we propose an optimization for the global discrete grids method. At first, a GPU-oriented multi-scale grid model of ocean surface which develops on the foundation of global discrete grids was designed to organize and manage the ocean surface grids. Then, in order to achieve the wind-drive wave dynamic rendering, this paper proposes a dynamic wave rendering method based on the multi-scale ocean surface grid model to support real-time wind field updating. At the same time, considering the effect of repairing grid crevices on the system efficiency, this paper presents an efficient method for repairing ocean surface grid crevices based on the characteristics of ocean grid and GPU technology. At last, the feasibility and validity of the method are verified by the comparison experiment. The experimental results show that the proposed method is efficient, stable and fast, and can compensate for the lack of function of the existing methods, so the application range is more extensive.

Key words: virtual earth, ocean visualization, GPU shader, discrete global grids