Procedural noise generation and rendering for realistic astrophysical flyovers: dust clouds from nebulae to galaxy spirals // Procedural noise generation and rendering for realistic astrophysical flyovers: dust clouds from nebulae to galaxy spirals

*Context*
Our goal fits within the general topic of the virtual exploration of realistic galaxies, at all scales (cf our past collaboration veRTIGE).
Hubble and JWST have popularized the incredibly detailed images of astrophysical objects like spiral galaxies (e.g. M51) and nebulae (e.g. Eagle), and astro-photography has exposed the details of the black clouds of the MilkyWay for even longer. Indeed, all the black part is a fractal continuum of semi-opaque dust cloud (sometime locally illuminated) connecting all the scales. Since this is the most structured and ubiquitous ingredient for high resolution images, and its correct appearance is crucial for realism, we set our goal as designing, generating and rendering them.
Alas, almost no astrophysical models describe the 3D textured aspect of the ISM - more generally, physics is more interested in exact average quantities than pixel-precise distribution of values in images - , so that the dust clouds are mostly known by the 2D images mentioned above. Since very recently, 3D tomography obtained from Gaia data is on the brinks of revolutionizing the field, but for now the resolution and span are very limited, and the results suffer strong artifacts.
Fortunately, graphist artists from movie production and video games are used to imitate real-life content from reference images by tuning parameters of shader trees based on procedural noise like Perlin noise, which is an efficient way to produce continuous fractal stochastic fields. Alas, the generative space of Perlin noise is very limited, especially for 3D distributions: the filament look of dust clouds doesn't look like Perlin noise. Moreover, the ISM is stochastic but it also have recognizable shapes, from nebulae bubbles and pillars to the vast clouds (in which they are seamlessly embedded) up to the galactic spirals and their multi-scale spurs: anisotropy is everywhere, while it is an aspect mostly untackled with in Computer Graphics. Finally, the virtual exploration of very deep scenes requires LOD, but LOD of deep multiscale noise is not as trivial as promised, especially because it is generally used together with non-linear functions.

*Description of the subject*
The goal of this PhD project is to design new noise primitives able to better approach the typical appearance of dust clouds, as well as data-structures and algorithms able to manage the specification and realisation of anisotropic distributions on an controlable way, in the scope of realtime flyover in such wide and deep multiscale data, compatible with the limited memory available on GPU.
We expect most of these results to also be of use in the broader field of Computer Graphics.



*Prerequisite*
- Some experience + general culture in Computer Graphics ( realistic rendering, real-time rendering, proceduralism... ) / Maths / Physics of light,
- C/C++ , GLSL shading language or equivalent ( programming involved ).
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*Context*
Our goal fits within the general topic of the virtual exploration of realistic galaxies, at all scales (cf our past collaboration veRTIGE).
Hubble and JWST have popularized the incredibly detailed images of astrophysical objects like spiral galaxies (e.g. M51) and nebulae (e.g. Eagle), and astro-photography has exposed the details of the black clouds of the MilkyWay for even longer. Indeed, all the black part is a fractal continuum of semi-opaque dust cloud (sometime locally illuminated) connecting all the scales. Since this is the most structured and ubiquitous ingredient for high resolution images, and its correct appearance is crucial for realism, we set our goal as designing, generating and rendering them.
Alas, almost no astrophysical models describe the 3D textured aspect of the ISM - more generally, physics is more interested in exact average quantities than pixel-precise distribution of values in images - , so that the dust clouds are mostly known by the 2D images mentioned above. Since very recently, 3D tomography obtained from Gaia data is on the brinks of revolutionizing the field, but for now the resolution and span are very limited, and the results suffer strong artifacts.
Fortunately, graphist artists from movie production and video games are used to imitate real-life content from reference images by tuning parameters of shader trees based on procedural noise like Perlin noise, which is an efficient way to produce continuous fractal stochastic fields. Alas, the generative space of Perlin noise is very limited, especially for 3D distributions: the filament look of dust clouds doesn't look like Perlin noise. Moreover, the ISM is stochastic but it also have recognizable shapes, from nebulae bubbles and pillars to the vast clouds (in which they are seamlessly embedded) up to the galactic spirals and their multi-scale spurs: anisotropy is everywhere, while it is an aspect mostly untackled with in Computer Graphics. Finally, the virtual exploration of very deep scenes requires LOD, but LOD of deep multiscale noise is not as trivial as promised, especially because it is generally used together with non-linear functions.

*Description of the subject*
The goal of this PhD project is to design new noise primitives able to better approach the typical appearance of dust clouds, as well as data-structures and algorithms able to manage the specification and realisation of anisotropic distributions on an controlable way, in the scope of realtime flyover in such wide and deep multiscale data, compatible with the limited memory available on GPU.
We expect most of these results to also be of use in the broader field of Computer Graphics.



*Prerequisite*
- Some experience + general culture in Computer Graphics ( realistic rendering, real-time rendering, proceduralism... ) / Maths / Physics of light,
- C/C++ , GLSL shading language or equivalent ( programming involved ).
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Début de la thèse : 01/10/2026
WEB : https://evasion.inrialpes.fr/~Fabrice.Neyret/Etudiants/sujetThese2025.html

Concours allocations

Université Grenoble Alpes

217 MSTII - Mathématiques, Sciences et technologies de l'information, Informatique

*Prerequisite* - Some experience + general culture in Computer Graphics ( realistic rendering, real-time rendering, proceduralism... ) / Maths / Physics of light, - C/C++ , GLSL shading language or equivalent ( programming involved ).
*Prerequisite* - Some experience + general culture in Computer Graphics ( realistic rendering, real-time rendering, proceduralism... ) / Maths / Physics of light, - C/C++ , GLSL shading language or equivalent ( programming involved ).