“Authoring and Simulating Meandering Rivers” by Paris, Guérin, Collon and Galin
Conference:
Type(s):
Title:
- Authoring and Simulating Meandering Rivers
Session/Category Title: Simulation and Animation of Natural Phenomena
Presenter(s)/Author(s):
Abstract:
We present a method for interactively authoring and simulating meandering river networks. Starting from a terrain with an initial low-resolution network encoded as a directed graph, we simulate the evolution of the path of the different channels using a physically-based migration equation augmented with control terms. The curvature-based terms in the equation allow us to reproduce phenomena identified in geomorphology, such as downstream migration of bends. Control terms account for the influence of the landscape topography and user-defined river trajectory constraints. Our model implements catastrophe events that shape meandering networks, such as cutoff forming oxbow lakes and avulsions. We visually show the effectiveness of our method and compare the generated networks quantitatively to river data by analyzing sinuosity and wavelength metrics. Our vector-based model runs at interactive rates, allowing for efficient authoring of large-scale meandering networks.
