Generating Large-scale Details: Altering Soil Surface and Structure with Tracks

Abstract

Tracks, footsteps and ruts are common elements we can observe in natural sceneries. Wherever there is human activity, we can find marks on the ground left by vehicles or walkers. These marks can be directly dug from a soft ground or left on a hard ground by objects that carry materials on their surfaces. This paper presents a method to alter soil with such tracks. These tracks are defined with a trajectory and the shape of the mark left by the moving object (vehicle or walker) and is then applied to the soil for each step of the trajectory. Using our method we can obtain tracks on a loose soil and the deposit of material through the track on the desired length. This method allows us to produce a great number of large-scale details on terrains.