Downloaded a sample DEM tile from the NASA SRTM dataset, scaled it down to 1024x1024, and used it to control the height of a 1024x1024 grid of vertices. I am kind of new at this, but 2,093,050 is definitely a new personal record for number of triangles put on the screen… by a LOT. The normal generation needs a bit of work, but it is not too far off. Doesn’t make sense to waste too much time getting it nailed down for a proof of concept.

Before I start messing around with LOD algorithms, I need to get my hands on the entire dataset and figure out a pipeline to pre-process it in QGIS.