Forming Terrains by Glacial Erosion

Forming Terrains by Glacial Erosion (Supplemental video)
Siggraph 2023 (ACM Transactions on Graphics)
Guillaume Cordonnier, Guillaume Jouvet, Adrien Peytavie, Jean Braun, Marie-Paule Cani, Bedrich Benes, Eric Galin, Eric Guérin, James Gain
We introduce the first solution for simulating the formation and evolution of glaciers, together with their attendant erosive effects, for periods covering the combination of glacial and inter-glacial cycles. Our efficient solution includes both a fast yet accurate deep learning-based estimation of high-order ice flows and a new, multi-scale advection scheme enabling us to account for the distinct time scales at which glaciers reach equilibrium compared to eroding the terrain. We combine the resulting glacial erosion model with finer-scale erosive phenomena to account for the transport of debris flowing from cliffs.
This enables us to model the formation of terrain shapes not previously adequately modeled in Computer Graphics, ranging from U-shaped and hanging valleys to fjords and glacial lakes.