3D Cloud Visualization In Real-Time

Abstract: The simulation of clouds can make virtual environments appear more realistic. This project produces an algorithm that visualizes 3D clouds in real-time. The algorithm consists of two processes, an initialization and a visualization process. The initialization process initializes clouds that are static in shape, where the shape is composed of a system of semi-transparent spherical particles. The visualization process moves, colors and draws the clouds on the screen. The position of the clouds change with time to simulate a simple cloud motion. The cloud particles are colored by solving the light transport equation by assuming that the sunlight scatters once with a cloud particle before reaching the camera that captures the scene. By solving the light transport equation, the clouds change their color and brightness depending on the direction of the incident sunlight. The algorithm can be described as a trade-off between computational performance and quality in the generated visual result. However, the algorithm proved to have frame rates that can be categorized as real-time performance. By modeling each cloud out of 100-800 particles, the algorithm requires a few minutes of initialization to produce a virtual cloud scene which has a frame rate of around 60 FPS when simulating up to 1000 cloud particles. For the same initialization time the algorithm can produce a virtual cloud scene with frame rates of 24 FPS or better when simulating up to 4000 cloud particles.