Alpha Mapping in Scene Simulation of Launch Vehicle

The display of third dimension graphics is the most crucial part in scene simulation, and alpha mapping plays an important role in the synthesization of third dimension graphics. Alpha mapping is a texture mapping technique with alpha channel for simulating transparent effects caused by patterned irregularities on otherwise locally smooth surfaces. In this paper, the current mathematic theory of alpha channel and alpha estimation in image matting, which were used in alpha mapping, was introduced. Based on the object-oriented graphics rendering engine (OGRE), alpha mapping was applied in the scene simulation system of launch vehicle, and achieved excellent result both in rendering time and quality. It is shown that the great improvement of real-time performance could be obtained based on the third dimension of the diversified objects and scene