what are sparse voxel octrees?

Question

I have reading a lot about the potential use of sparse voxel octrees in future graphics engines.

However I have been unable to find technical information on them.

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Answer 1

actually, the 1.15 bits make me suspect they just store things sequentially, in some brilliantly simple way. that is, if they're only storing the volume data and not things like colour or texture data as well.

think about it like this: 1 voxel only needs to be 1 bit: is it there or is it not there? (to be or not to be, in other words :P). the octree node it's in is made of 8 voxels and a bit to store whether the thing contains anything at all. that's one bit per voxel plus one per 8. 1 + 1/8 = 1,125. add another parent node with 7 siblings and you get 1 + 1/8 + 1/8/8 = 1,140625. suspiciously close to the 1.15 they mentioned. although i'm probably way off, it may give someone some clue.