Computer Modeling and Visualization of Accurate Terrain Shadows in Virtual Environment System

Abstract

The paper considers the task of integrating dynamic terrain shadows into the VirSim virtual environment system developed at FSI SRISA RAS. Core technology of 3D terrain modeling and visualization, implemented in a subsystem of the VirSim complex, is described. The paper proposes a technology for expanding the functionality of light-shadow modeling stage in terms of constructing dynamic terrain shadows by means of GPU-accelerated ray casting. Proposed technology includes the stage of creating an accelerating local extrema map and the stage of constructing a screen map of terrain shadows. Developed solution was tested in the task of simulation of detailed observation of terrain areas from an orbital spacecraft. The obtained results can be applied in engineering of virtual environment systems, simulators, scientific visualization applications, virtual laboratories, etc.