Tessellation transition

I want to implement tessellation transition from fine to coarse geometry and vice versa for terrain rendering which doesn't intr开发者_JS百科oduce discontinuities (cracks). Real-time performance is not required i.e. it can be view-independent.

What do you think about the following proposal:

alt text http://www.shrani.si/f/A/qD/2UJlczki/tessellation.png?

1. Is it even possible?
2. Have you implemented something similar?
3. What are the drawbacks?
4. Do you have any simpler suggestions?

Yes, this has been done many times. See for instance Hierarchical 4-K Meshes. There are probably references that are specific to terrain modeling and rendering but I don't have one handy.