Real-time Volumetric Cloud Visualization of Meteorological Simulation Data

Main Information

Creator/Author:
Kenkenberg, Alexander
Contributors:
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Year of Publication:
2022
Faculty:
Faculty of Mathematics, Computer Science and Statistics and Faculty of Physics

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Is Identical To:
Find Record @ Open Data LMU

Content-related Information

Abstract:
Notes: This archive contains a cyclone simulation as png/csv files and as Unreal Engine 4.27 assets. Documentation can be found in the linked git repository. Abstract: I present a concept for visualizing realistic volumetric clouds in real-time in the Unreal Engine using a scientific weather simulation as a basis. From the simulation files, I extract and compress non-linearly spaced variables such as cloud density, rainfall, and wind speed. Cloud density is used as the basis for ray-marched volumetric clouds in Unreal Engine. The clouds use wind speed as a flow map and rain density as a color map. I add Voronoi noise to the clouds and mask it with wind speed to add dynamic detail. I am also able to animate all time steps of the simulation in real-time. A user study shows that most of the added effects improve realism and my implementation is five out of six times more realistic than previous methods. The median performance of a playable prototype on consumer-grade hardware is 128~FPS and meets the performance target.
Keywords:
Volumetric Cloud
Unreal Engine
Python
Real Time
Simulation
Meteorological Simulation
DDC:
500 Natural sciences and mathematics
530 Physics

Identifier

DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5282/ubm/data.311
lmUB:
22a959f9-3e52-44c5-8be2-804e0299f27f

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