You certainly don't need an octree to do the second option, nor will a quadtree provide much benefit.
You will get more detail with the second method, and a higher framerate, but a shorter view distance. You need only display those tiles which are a certain distance from the camera. No need for any type of tree structure. You don't even need to worry about the ones outside of the camera's view frustrum becuase Blitz will cull them itself.
I coded the second one. But I went one step further and allowed level of detail changes on distant tiles. Click the link in my sig for a page with a demo showing it in action. But note that the distance you can see is due to the level of detail changes. Without them the view distance would be greatly reduced. Approximately half of what you can see in my demo I think. Of course if you look at real world locations you really can't see that far. It's only when flying above the terrain that you really need such great view distances.
You will get more detail with the second method, and a higher framerate, but a shorter view distance. You need only display those tiles which are a certain distance from the camera. No need for any type of tree structure. You don't even need to worry about the ones outside of the camera's view frustrum becuase Blitz will cull them itself.
I coded the second one. But I went one step further and allowed level of detail changes on distant tiles. Click the link in my sig for a page with a demo showing it in action. But note that the distance you can see is due to the level of detail changes. Without them the view distance would be greatly reduced. Approximately half of what you can see in my demo I think. Of course if you look at real world locations you really can't see that far. It's only when flying above the terrain that you really need such great view distances.