Real-time simulating and rendering of layered dust

Detailed modeling of appearance affected by dust coverage is challenging because of the numerous physical and material factors on which it depends. The two principal roadblocks are the complexity of simulating dust particle deposition and the difficulty of accurately depicting the reflectance. In this paper, we present a practical framework for simulating and rendering the appearance of objects covered by the layered dust of spatially varying thickness. First, a fast evaluation approach is proposed to compute the dust’s thickness distribution based on a surface’s inclination and stickiness properties, as well as surface exposure and local stability. Then, to ensure high fidelity of light scattering and real-time performance, we render the scene based on a revised Kubelka–Munk model implemented on the GPU, including the effects of external and internal surface reflection. Finally, experimental results reveal that our framework can produce visually convincing dusty objects of arbitrary complexity in real time.