Rendering complex three-dimensional Engineering models has been a challenge for Computer Graphics ever since its origin, as detailed models are often composed of millions of polygons while current graphic stations are able to display, at interactive rates, only dozens or hundreds of thousands of polygons. A way to increase the performance of viewers of three-dimensional models is to reduce the number of polygons passed to the rendering pipeline by eliminating large groups of polygons classified as non-visible for being out of the viewing frustum or hidden by other polygons. In this work, we study the use of bounding volumes to determine sets of polygons which are potentially visible, propose a way to structure such polygons in a hierarchy so as to restrict the necessary computations for this purpose, and compile a series of results which allow us to take some conclusions on the use of bounding volumes and model structuring.