Popping (computer graphics)

In 3D computer graphics, popping refers to an undesirable visual effect that occurs when the transition of a 3D object to a different pre-calculated level of detail (LOD) is abrupt and obvious to the viewer.

Techniques like geomorphing and LOD blending can reduce visual popping significantly by making the transitions more gradual.

[2] During the blending process an alpha value is specified for each LOD, which determines transparency of objects.

Due to this restriction, traditional geomorphing is not suited to interactive simulations because the process cannot be quickly reversed if conditions change unexpectedly.

Real-time geomorphing directly modifies individual vertices of the 3D model to adjust its LOD.

This is an exaggerated example of a 3D object's geometrically being reduced using a level of detail technique. LOD0 is the highest detail version of the object and each subsequent LOD reduces the quality of the object. A change without intermediate steps from LOD1 to LOD2 will be obvious to the viewer.
An exaggerated example of LOD blending to illustrate how apparent the ghosting effect can be.
Geomorphing creates a smoother transition between LOD0 and LOD1 by creating approximated meshes to act as intermediate steps.