Real-time simulation of cumulus clouds through SkewT/LogP diagrams

We propose the first weather cloud simulator based on SkewT/LogP diagrams in computer graphics.We solve the equation of motion for clouds in real-time, without solving its differential equations.The generation of clouds adapt to weather conditions in an automated manner. Display Omitted 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 physically-based technique enables the incorporation of our cloud simulator in systems tied to important industries, namely movies, virtual environments, and video games.