A Fast Ray-tracing Algorithm for Rugged Terrain

Abstract

In order to analyze coverage prediction of irregular terrain using ray tracing model, some form of accelerating must be performed to improve computational efficiency. A new image source tree structure is proposed to improving the efficiency of coverage prediction. This paper describes an accelerating algorithm that has proven effective in working with large terrain data files which extracted from SRTM Digital Elevation Model (DEM) database. On the basis of triangular subdivision of DEM data, a lot of coverage predictions are illustrated to analyze the field distribution and channel characteristic using ray-tracing method.