A Geological Model for Landscape Simulation

Summary

This paper describes an original approach to terrain evolution in landscape synthesis. In order to create some realistic landforms, we simulate geologically contrasted terrains and apply deterministic erosion processes to them. This allows us to relate erosion at any point of the model to local geological parameters. Any height field may be chosen as an initial topographic surface. Small perturbations may be introduced to avoid unpleasant regularities. A 3D model defines the geological parameters of each point according to elevation. Our method is iterative: at each step, rock removal and possible alluvial deposition are computed on each point of the land surface. The available erosion laws simulate mechanical erosion, chemical dissolution and alluvial deposition. The geology and the morphology of the resulting landscapes and the river network are created at each iteration. Landsurfaces can be visualized at the final stage, by a rendering algorithm including natural texture mapping. The stream network and the ridges may also be visualized.