POV ray (an open source ray tracer) uses an algorythm called procedural textures to defines swirls in 3 d objects such as a slice across a piece of knotted wood or marble at any point within the object to sett the color of that pixel.
Flightgear could use a similiar procedural textures with the only difference being it would change over time and it would instead define the wind direction in the atmossphere at that point in space or underwater current. It could do the same for underwater currents. Perhaps the ideal solution for realism is an general world mapping of currents etc with the local details being handled by such a procedural algorithm in motion. Although procedural textures are computationally intensive although simple. On Thu, 1 Feb 2007 11:37 am, John wrote: > > I know this is going to get me in trouble. Perhaps we have it > backwards... > > The "environment" is a not an active computing element, it merely > exists > and does not care about the objects in it. > It effects the objects but has no knowledge of the objects. rather the > objects sense the environment and its state based on their location in > the environment. (We can argue that the objects in turn change the > enviroment, but that is akin to computing the center of mass of the > sun/earth system.) Sooo.. > > Seems we should treat the weather data as a set of points equally > spaced > and distributed that contain the relevant information and define a 3D > field. Any object flying through the field could then based on its > location select two or more data points and using whatever algorithm > desired compute a local condition. > > The field could be static, homogeneous, cyclical, monotonic, whatever. > The object would only care about its location in the field, not how the > field is created, updated, or rates of change. > > A seperate application/thread would then be responsible for creating > and > updating the field in whatever fashion deemed appropriate. The field > could be organized as a set of volumes and managed in a manner similar > to the scenery tiles. Volumes would contain associated METAR stations > or whatever for computing data points which would then be merged with > the existing field. > > Regards > John W. > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Using Tomcat but need to do more? Need to support web services, > security? > Get stuff done quickly with pre-integrated technology to make your job > easier. > Download IBM WebSphere Application Server v.1.0.1 based on Apache > Geronimo > http://sel.as-us.falkag.net/sel?cmd=lnk&kid=120709&bid=263057&dat=121642 > _______________________________________________ > Flightgear-devel mailing list > Flightgear-devel@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/flightgear-devel www.GlobalBoiling.com for daily images about hurricanes, globalwarming and the melting poles. www.ElectricQuakes.com daily solar and earthquake images. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Using Tomcat but need to do more? Need to support web services, security? Get stuff done quickly with pre-integrated technology to make your job easier. Download IBM WebSphere Application Server v.1.0.1 based on Apache Geronimo http://sel.as-us.falkag.net/sel?cmd=lnk&kid=120709&bid=263057&dat=121642 _______________________________________________ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/flightgear-devel
