Patent ID: 8749550

Claim:
A computer-implemented method for displaying replicated geographic data in a three-dimensional environment, comprising: identifying, by one or more computing devices, a first node in a node tree including an instance set, the first node being located within a field of view of a virtual camera that defines a perspective to view content of the three-dimensional environment, wherein the instance set comprises a plurality of instances of a replicated object respectively associated with a plurality of locations associated with the first node; identifying, by the one or more computing devices, a collection referenced by the instance set, the collection including a plurality of models, and wherein one of the plurality of models is associated with each of the plurality of instances; identifying, by the one or more computing devices, a second node in the node tree including the collection referenced by the instance set, a depth of the first node in the node tree being greater than a depth of the second node in the node tree; identifying, by the one or more computing devices, in the collection the model associated with each of the plurality of instances, wherein the model in the collection in the second node has multiple representations at different levels-of-detail; determining, by the one or more computing devices for each of the plurality of instances, which of the different levels-of-detail of the model to use based at least in part on a distance between the virtual camera and the location associated with such instance; and displaying, by the one or more computing devices, the first node, wherein displaying the first node comprises displaying at the respective determined levels-of-detail model data in the collection at each of the plurality of locations respectively associated with the plurality of instances.