Eurographics Workshop on Natural Phenomena 2006 - Vienna, Austria

In recent years the development of graphics hardware and efficient rendering algorithms enabled game developers to create and render large landscapes with interactive rates. However, the shown scenes are still rough approximations that do not reach the complexity of real nature. To obtain sufficient simulations, a couple of problems have to be solved.

Creating a good scene requires powerful modelling algorithms on different levels. First a sufficient set of plant models has to be created. Nature is very diverse: modelling the most important plants that are found in Europe requires thousands of different models, and this is why efficient modelling algorithms for plants have to be found. The plant models then have to be combined to a virtual landscape. At this stage another modelling program is needed that enables the user to edit a huge number of small objects. The plants interact with each other; complex patterns arise due to seeding mechanisms and the fight for resources. Sometimes, the development of a landscape has to be simulated.

Having modelled plant models and positions, we end up with very much geometry even for a small landscape. A single tree model consists sometimes of millions of surfaces, a forest of billions. Efficient level-of-detail algorithms are necessary to obtain interactive rendering with these scenes.

Rendering the models is also an interesting problem. The interaction of light with the plant surfaces and especially leaves is not trivial. Subsurface scattering and different optical properties of plant tissues makes it necessary to adapt standard rendering techniques to these models. Especially for hardware rendering this is a complex task. In the talk I will outline our modelling and rendering pipeline. Also I will review the problems and frontiers we currently focus while solving our goal of rendering one square kilometre of nature at interactive frame rates.

• 2003- Full Professor for Computer Graphics and Media Informatics, Department of Computer and Information Science, University of Konstanz
• 2000-2003 Professor for Computer Graphics and Media Design, Department of Computer Science, Dresden University of Technology
• 1996-2000 Postdoc Position at the University of Magdeburg, Work on Non-photorealistic Computer Graphics
• 1991-1996 Ph.D thesis "Interaktive Simulation deformierbarer Körper", University of Karlsruhe
• 1986-1991 Study of Computer Science, Diploma in Computer Science, University of Karlsruhe