Interactive volume rendering aurora on the GPU

• Main Authors: Lawlor, Orion Sky, Genetti, Joe
• Other Authors: Skala, Václav
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Václav Skala - UNION Agency 2011
• Subjects: objemové vykreslování; polární záře; atmosférický rozptyl; volume rendering; aurora borealis; atmospheric scattering
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/11025/1242; http://wscg.zcu.cz/WSCG2011/!_2011_J_WSCG_1-3.pdf

We present a combination of techniques to render the aurora borealis in real time on a modern graphics processing unit (GPU). Unlike the general 3D volume rendering problem, an auroral display is emissive and can be factored into a height-dependent energy deposition function, and a 2D electron flux map. We also present a GPU-friendly atmosphere model, which includes an integrable analytic approximation of the atmosphere’s density along a ray. Together, these techniques enable a modern consumer graphics card to realistically render the aurora at 20–80fps, from any point of view either inside or outside the atmosphere.