Realistic Rendering and Reconstruction of Astronomical Objects and an Augmented Reality Application for Astronomy

Abstract

These days, there is an ever increasing need for realistic models,renderings and visualization of astronomical objects to be used inplanetarium and as a tool in modern astrophysical research. One of themajor goals of this dissertation is to develop novel algorithms forrecovering and rendering 3D models of a specific set of astronomicalobjects. We first present a method to render the color and shape ofthe solar disc in different climate conditions as well as fordifferent height to temperature atmospheric profiles. We then presenta method to render and reconstruct the 3D distribution of reflectionnebulae. The rendering model takes into account scattering andabsorption to generate physically realistic visualization ofreflection nebulae. Further, we propose a reconstruction method foranother type of astronomical objects, planetary nebulae. We alsopresent a novel augmented reality application called the augmentedastronomical telescope, tailored for educational astronomy. Thereal-time application augments the view through a telescope byprojecting additional information such as images, text and videorelated to the currently observed object during observation. Allmethods previously proposed for rendering and reconstructingastronomical objects can be used to create novel content for thepresented augmented reality application.