For those of you who don't know, last year I published a chapter about PolyVox and Thermite3D in the book Game Engine Gems volume 1. This chapter covered a lot of the ideas behind voxel terrain including data storage, surface extraction, and rendering. By coincidence, I've just discovered the entire chapter has been made available via Google Books!
You can read the article here: http://books.google.com/books?id=WNfD2u8nIlIC&lpg=PR1&dq=game%20engine%20gems&pg=PA39#v=onepage&q&f=false
For anyone interested in PolyVox or Thermite3D this would be a great place to start. However, I wrote the chapter in the summer of 2009 so it's worth noting that the following things have changed:
- PolyVox can now store density values as well as material values for each voxel.
- The CubicSurfaceExtractor has been added.
- The ambient occlusion code has been added.
- The volume representation has changed.
- The A* pathfinder has been implemented.
None the less I still think it's a great introduction. If you like the chapter then there's plenty more if you buy the book, and Game Engine Gems Volume 2 has also just been released (though I haven't contributed to this one).
So, if you have any questions about the chapter then this is the place to post them
