Periodic Caustic Maps

This research is concerned with the creation of periodic caustic texture maps. These maps are periodic in both time and space. These maps can be used to add visual detail to a scene involving water flows in a straightforward manner by mapping the caustic maps onto the scene's geometry. Of course the resulting maps are not physically correct , but they can greatly enhance a water simulation at almost no additional cost.

The maps are created by first creating periodic water surfaces using an inverse FFT synthesis technique. Then, for each time-sample, the corresponding caustic map is computed for a given depth. The later is computed by using OpenGL.

Here are three examples of ``caustic maps'', they were created using standard OpenGL routines. Each frame at a resolution of 256x256 took only 2 seconds to render on an RS4000 SGI Indy. The caustics result from the defocusing and focusing of light by an undulating water surface. The dimensions of the water patch are:

magnitude of fluctuations: 5 cm
side length of patch: 1 m
length of one cycle of the animation: 1 sec

Here are the tree animations for depth equal to 50 cm, 4 meters and 8 meters respectively.

Here is an example of an animation where I duplicate the same tile three times in the x and y directions:

click here to see the animation

The periodicity can be annoying, therefore I have done some research into using aperiodic texture maps

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