Simulation of raindrop behaviors on vehicle windshield

Real-time simulating raindrop behaviors on vehicle windshield can be applied in various simulation environments, such as drive simulators, military training systems, and computer and video games. The related existing approaches do not allow real-time simulation due to their heavy calculations and/or time-consuming rendering mechanism. In this paper, we present a new approach to simulate raindrop behaviors and generate the deformed visual effects on vehicle windshield. Our raindrop behavior simulation model considers most of the critical factors, including gravity, the interfacial tension, car speed, wind, raindrop size, and density, etc. Our visual deformation model partially deforms the 2D images in the frame buffer to create the reflection and refraction effects caused by the raindrops on the windshield. The approach presented in this paper can be used in various real-time simulation systems.