“Display of the earth taking into account atmospheric scattering” by Nishita, Sirai, Tadamura and Nakamae

A method to display the earth as viewed from outer space (or a
spaceship) is proposed. The intention of the paper is application to
space flight simulators (e.g., reentry to the atmosphere) and the
simulation of surveys of the earth (comparisons with observations
from weather satellites and weather simulations); it is not for
geometric modeling of terrains and/or clouds viewed from the
ground, but for displaying the earth including the surface of the
sea viewed from outer space taking into account particles (air
molecules and aerosols) in the atmosphere and water molecules in
the sea.
The major points of the algorithm proposed here are the
efficient calculation of optical length and sky light, with lookup
tables taking advantage of the facts that the earth is spherical, and
that sunlight is parallel.

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