Visual simulation of weathering coated metallic objects

Abstract

Weathering, referring to techniques for depicting outdoor objects as having suffered rain and wind damage, has a long history of research, and many methods can be found in the literature. Metal is a representative target of weathering, as metallic surface corrosion is a widespread deterioration phenomenon in our daily life. However, few weathering methods consider the effects of rust-preventive paint, while real metal is usually treated with a preservative. This paper presents a novel procedural method for weathering coated metal objects. In our method, a coated surface is imposed on a 3D triangular mesh. We enable the mechanical deterioration of coating film, and we deform the mesh model to express cracking and peeling. As further defacing elements on the coating film, runoff rust and darkening are reproduced by changing the color and reflectance of the surface. Besides, by locally adjusting the control parameters of the designated areas on the surface, the process of deterioration can be arbitrarily directed. Several visual simulation results are shown to prove empirically the faithfulness of the proposed methods.