GPU-accelerated real-time IR smoke screen simulation and assessment of its obscuration

With the growing demand for the Battlefield Environment Simulation (BES), IR smoke screen, which is computationally expensive and absolutely indispensable, should be modeled true to life and correct in its thermal radiation characteristics. This paper analyzes the features of an IR smoke screen, and represents an IR smoke screen model based on light extinction, particle dispersion and temperature attenuation, which is calculated by GPU and rendered to screen in real time. Thus a method considering both the real-life in profile and the real-time in efficiency is presented. Additionally, the comparison between the simulated results and the measured data is made to verify the correctness of the smoke screen’s obscuration, which illustrates the effect of its interference feature in an infrared scene.

► Real-time infrared smoke screen is modeled physically. ► High render rate is realized by GPU technique. ► The obscuration property is verified by field data. ► A 10,000 facets scene is rendered with a 100 Hz frame rate.