Virtual tourism is the application of virtual reality technology in tourism industry,in which the key is to construct lifelike virtual environment.This paper introduces several main methods in producing virtual environment,such as landform formation with the help of height field method,construction of complicated three-dimensional models in virtual environment through 3DS MAX,construction of lifelike tree models using Billboard technique and Cross Billboard technique,and adoption of texture mapping,LOD(level of detail),and collision testing technique to increase sense of reality in virtual environment.Finally a lifelike virtual tourism environment is realized under the context of Visual C++6.0 through OpenGL.
