A real-time geological sections generation method for geological 3D models based on per-pixel linked lists

Surface models are commonly used to represent three-dimensional geological bodies; nonetheless, generation of geological sections from these models is a crucial task in geological analysis. Traditional geometry-space methods often struggle to meet the demands for interactive real-time section generation. Although the conventional image-space methods remain the state-of-the-art approach for generating single or limited number of sections in real-time, their performance significantly declines with increasing triangle count or number of sections of the model. This study proposes a novel method for generating real-time geological sections using per-pixel linked lists (PPLL). By constructing PPLL, depth and color information of fragments is stored. Leveraging the PPLL, the proposed method utilizes highly parallel fragment shaders of the graphics processing unit to implement pixel ray-casting algorithm for section generation. Unlike the conventional image-space methods, the proposed method renders the geological model only once, enabling the real-time generation of numerous sections. Comparative experiments demonstrate that the proposed method significantly outperforms the conventional method in terms of scalability and efficiency. Furthermore, it is highly adaptable to more complex geological operations. Leveraging the PPLL-based architecture, a unified framework integrating various geological operations can be developed, opening new directions for real-time, interactive, and visual geological analysis.