Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!usc!orion.oac.uci.edu!unogate!xing!rick
From: rick@xing.unocal.com (Richard Ottolini)
Newsgroups: comp.graphics
Subject: evening weather news 3-D cloud effects
Message-ID: <1991Jun27.150931.5872@unocal.com>
Date: 27 Jun 91 15:09:31 GMT
Sender: news@unocal.com (USENET News)
Organization: Unocal Corporation
Lines: 15
Originator: rick@xing

Does anyone know for sure how they do the "3-D clouds" on the evening news?

My speculations:
They probably assume brightness is porportional to thickness.
Then I don't think they are doing a sophisticated 3-D rendering based upon that
info.  I suggest one could vertical smear a pixel a distance based on brightness
(i.e. thickness) and draw the smears from back to front (north to south on cloud
images).

Motivation:
Satellite weather images are available on the network (keep up with sci.geo.meteorology
for details).  After convering from GIF to pbmplus-pgm format, they can be
processed with standard or custom mult-dimensional signal analysis software.

I'll probably try some experiements when I have time.