Simulation of Hard Shadows on Large Spherical Terrains

Abstract

Real-time rendering of high precision shadows using digital terrain models as input data is a challenging task. Especially when interactivity is targeted and Level of Detail (LoD) data structures are utilized to tackle huge amount of data. In this paper, we present a real-time rendering approach for the computation of hard shadows using large scale digital terrain data obtained by satellite imagery. Our approach is based on an extended horizon mapping algorithm that avoids costly pre-computations and ensures high accuracy. This algorithm is further developed to handle large data. The proposed algorithms take the surface curvature of the large spherical bodies into account during the computation. The performance issues are discussed and the results are presented. The generated images can be exploited in 3D research and aerospace related areas.