Fast animation of lightning using an adaptive mesh

We present a fast method for simulating, animating, and rendering lightning using adaptive grids. The "dielectric breakdown model" is an elegant algorithm for electrical pattern formation that we extend to enable animation of lightning. The simulation can be slow, particularly in 3D, becau...

Ausführliche Beschreibung

Bibliographische Detailangaben
Veröffentlicht in:IEEE transactions on visualization and computer graphics. - 1996. - 13(2007), 2 vom: 13. März, Seite 390-402
1. Verfasser: Kim, Theodore (VerfasserIn)
Weitere Verfasser: Lin, Ming C
Format: Aufsatz
Sprache:English
Veröffentlicht: 2007
Zugriff auf das übergeordnete Werk:IEEE transactions on visualization and computer graphics
Schlagworte:Journal Article
Beschreibung
Zusammenfassung:We present a fast method for simulating, animating, and rendering lightning using adaptive grids. The "dielectric breakdown model" is an elegant algorithm for electrical pattern formation that we extend to enable animation of lightning. The simulation can be slow, particularly in 3D, because it involves solving a large Poisson problem. Losasso et al. recently proposed an octree data structure for simulating water and smoke, and we show that this discretization can be applied to the problem of lightning simulation as well. However, implementing the incomplete Cholesky conjugate gradient (ICCG) solver for this problem can be daunting, so we provide an extensive discussion of implementation issues. ICCG solvers can usually be accelerated using "Eisenstat's trick," but the trick cannot be directly applied to the adaptive case. Fortunately, we show that an "almost incomplete Cholesky" factorization can be computed so that Eisenstat's trick can still be used. We then present a fast rendering method based on convolution that is competitive with Monte Carlo ray tracing but orders of magnitude faster, and we also show how to further improve the visual results using jittering
Beschreibung:Date Completed 27.03.2007
Date Revised 12.01.2007
published: Print
Citation Status MEDLINE
ISSN:1941-0506