Real-Time Rendering of Water in Computer Graphics

The simulation and rendering of realistic looking water is a very difficult task in computer graphics, due to the fact that everybody knows how it should behave and look like. This work will focus on rendering realistic looking water in real time. The simulation of water will not be described. Therefore this paper can be seen as a survey of current rendering methods for water bodies. Though simulation will not be mentioned data structures which are used by the most common simulation methods are described, because they can directly be used as input for the later presented surface extraction and rendering techniques. The correct handling of the interaction of light with a water surface can highly increase the perceived realism of the rendering. Therefore methods for physically exact rendering of reflections and refractions will be shown, using Snell’s law and the Fresnel equations. The light water interaction does not stop with the water surface, but continues inside the water volume, causing caustics and beams of light. Rendering techniques for these phenomena will be described as well as bubbles and foam. CR Categories: I.3.3 [Computer Graphics]: Picture/Image Generation—Display algorithms I.3.5 [Computer Graphics]: Computational Geometry and Object Modeling—Boundary representations I.3.7 [Computer Graphics]: Three-Dimensional Graphics and Realism—Virtual reality