A real time computer model for wind-driven fallen snow

Abstract

We propose a new modeling method for the appearance of fallen snow formed by snow drift near buildings and other obstacles. Instead of computational fluid dynamics simulation for wind-driven fallen snow, we employ the Pre-computed Radiance Transfer (PRT) technique [Sloan et al. 2002] to handle snowflakes which fly, hit and fall with the wind blowing to all directions around obstacles. This approach approximates snow accumulation with snow drift without heavy fluid dynamics simulation computation.