Two‐dimensional visual simulation of flames, smoke and the spread of fire

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Abstract
Since CG simulation of natural phenomena on the basis of their forms and motions has many applications, such as various landscape designs and special effects in films, it is very important and interesting to develop efficient techniques for their visual simulation. It is especially interesting to produce realistic images and animations of flames and smoke, on account of their complicated patterns of behaviour.Effective simulation methods for flames and smoke are expected to satisfy the following requirements: The motion of flames or smoke produced in an interaction with obstacles can be simulated. The motion of flames and smoke can be easily controlled according to scenarios. The spread of fire can be simulated. Although several useful representation methods have been proposed so far, simulating flames and smoke still remains a challenging problem. In this paper, we first describe our basic two‐dimensional visual simulation method based on particle‐based simulation, but not based on exact physical simulation. Roughly speaking, our method assumes that the images of flames and smoke are basically obtained by visualizing turbulence, that is, the particles of flames and smoke play the role of tracers in the field of turbulence. Next, we present an improved method for simulating the spread of fire and the appearance of smoke produced in an incomplete combustion. Simultaneously, we show several examples of the simulation. Finally, we will touch slightly on further problems for extending the model to one which works in three‐dimensional space.