An Overview of Techniques for Egocentric Black Hole Visualization and Their Suitability for Planetarium Applications

Abstract

The visualization of black holes is used in science communication to educate people about our universe and concepts of general relativity. Recent visualizations aim to depict black holes in realtime, overcoming the challenge of efficient general relativistic ray tracing. In this state-of-the-art report, we provide the first overview of existing works about egocentric black hole visualization that generate images targeted at general audiences. We focus on Schwarzschild and Kerr black holes and discuss current methods to depict the distortion of background panoramas, point-shaped stars, nearby objects, and accretion disks. Approaches to realtime visualizations are highlighted. Furthermore, we present the implementation of a state-of-the-art black hole visualization in the planetarium software Uniview.