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Authors
Advisor(s)
Abstract(s)
Modeling, simulation, and realistic rendering of natural phenomena have been important goals in computer graphics for decades. Clouds, as a natural phenomenon, represent a real challenge because their
birth, life, and death are amorphous and dynamic in nature. As a consequence, cloud simulation is very
time-consuming when using physically-based methods. This paper presents a real-time cloud simulation
method based on SkewT/LogP diagrams to overcome this time performance problem. These diagrams allow us to simulate 3D clouds from sounding data made public worldwide by weather agencies. More
specifically, a SkewT/LogP diagram describes the vertical motion of a cloud in the atmosphere, i.e., our
cloud simulator system is based on physics but avoids solving differential equations of cloud motion to
achieve real-time rates. We have also built a visual tool for 2D SkewT/LogP diagrams that allows us to
inspect, control and simulate the thermodynamic process of ascending clouds in the atmosphere, as well
as a 3D synthetic environment where clouds are advected by buoyant forces. This lightweight physicallybased technique enables the incorporation of our cloud simulator in systems tied to important industries,
namely movies, virtual environments, and video games.
Description
Keywords
Cloud simulation Cloud rendering Physically-based methods SkewT/LogP diagrams
Citation
Duarte, R. P. M., & Gomes, A. J. P. (2017). Real-time simulation of cumulus clouds through SkewT/LogP diagrams. Computers & Graphics, 67, 103–114. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cag.2017.06.005
Publisher
Elsevier