Interactive Black-Hole Visualization

Verbraeck, A.W.; Eisemann, E.

doi:10.1109/TVCG.2020.3030452

Interactive Black-Hole Visualization

Title

Interactive Black-Hole Visualization

Author

Verbraeck, A.W. (TU Delft Computer Graphics and Visualisation)
Eisemann, E. (TU Delft Computer Graphics and Visualisation)

Date

2021

Abstract

We present an efficient algorithm for visualizing the effect of black holes on its distant surroundings as seen from an observer nearby in orbit. Our solution is GPU-based and builds upon a two-step approach, where we first derive an adaptive grid to map the 360-view around the observer to the distorted celestial sky, which can be directly reused for different camera orientations. Using a grid, we can rapidly trace rays back to the observer through the distorted spacetime, avoiding the heavy workload of standard tracing solutions at real-time rates. By using a novel interpolation technique we can also simulate an observer path by smoothly transitioning between multiple grids. Our approach accepts real star catalogues and environment maps of the celestial sky and generates the resulting black-hole deformations in real time.

Subject

Physical & Environmental Sciences
Engineering
Mathematics
Computer Graphics Techniques
Algorithms

To reference this document use:

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:6e328f45-bfba-4bad-92f4-37fa9e74f3ab

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1109/TVCG.2020.3030452

ISSN

1077-2626

Source

IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, 27 (2), 796 - 805

Bibliographical note

Accepted Author Manuscript