Real-Time Desertscapes Simulation with CUDA

Abstract

: We propose a new GPU-based method capable of simulating dune formation, propagation and aeolian sand transport, based on the Desertscape Simulation model. Our method improves upon the original as well as an existing real-time GPU implementation by introducing bilinear interpolation and removing randomness, which leads to a more robust and noise-free method. We implement our method with CUDA and use atomic adds on floats to remove a previous limitation that required block-based discretization of elevation values. A new sand distribution scheme for sand avalanching is proposed that converges faster than the previous work. We propose and evaluate a new method for reptation, which was previously neglected. Our method further improves on the performance compared with the previous real-time method and can generate results that more closely resemble dune evolution with a bidirectional wind scheme as predicted by an accurate offline method. Our method can generate detailed, physically plausible desert environments very quickly, with possible applications in both computer graphics as well as geomorphology. With some restrictions, our method could even be used during gameplay.