Volume Graphics Modeling of Ice Thawing

Abstract

Image synthesis of natural phenomena is one of the fundamental research areas in volume graphics. Since the pursuit of photoreality requires physically-based computation at the cost of interactivity, much more attention has been paid to phenomenological models, which are intended to produce the same visual effect as physically-based models, without highly-complex computations. This paper focuses on ice thawing as a quite common phenomenon in our daily life, and presents volume modeling of the phenomenon using mathematical morphology and cellular automaton.