Valette, GillesPrevost, StephanieLucas, LaurentLeonard, Joel2015-02-212015-02-2120081467-8659http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8659.2007.01042.xWe attempt to model and visualize the main characteristics of cracks produced on the surface of a desiccating crusted soil: their patterns, their different widths and depths and their dynamics of creation and evolution. In this purpose we propose a method to dynamically produce three-dimensional (3D) quasi-static fractures, which takes into account the characteristics of the soil. The main originality of this method is the use of a 3D discrete propagation of shrinkage volumes with respect to 2D precalculated paths. In order to get realistic cracks, we newly propose to take into account a possibly inhomogeneous thickness of the shrinking layer by using a watershed transformation to compute these paths. Moreover, we use the waterfall algorithm in order to introduce in our simulation a hierarchy notion in the cracks appearance, which is therefore linked with the initial structure of the surface. In this paper, this method is presented in detail and a validation of the cracks patterns by a comparison with real ones is given.10.1111/j.1467-8659.2007.01042.x47-62