CS382:Unit-lightnig

• Simulating a thunderstorm, including atmosphere, charged cloud, building on earth and etc. Estimating which area will get damages.
  • Lightning (Wikipedia)
  • Make Lightning Strike (National Geographic)
• Simulating a Lightning stroke. Making a model for the main stroke, and then recursively generating similar models for any branches that may occur. It would be a three dimensional lightning stroke by openGL. Realistic lightning strokes could be generated and displayed in real-time.
• Can I implement this lighting model to Second Life?

• Article: Physically Based Animation and Rendering of Lightning

Comments

Pros

• Interesting idea

Cons

• Validation and verification very difficult to do if we build it from scratch in Second Life (has to be scientifically accurate, work with multiple people interacting with it).

Comments

• Idea - walking through Second Life in a large area with buildings and trees, and lightning strikes every three seconds, and somehow you have to walk through the area without getting struck (perhaps getting umbrella randomly generated on top of you)

To Do

• If you want to use Second Life, Charlie may be able to ask Intel if you can build on their land.
• See if you can find an existing model that we can prepackage.
• Start thinking about a possible second idea instead that has less friction to implement.
• Look at NOAA in Second Life