Goblins by Spheroidal Weathering
M. Beardal, M. Farley, D. Ouderkirk, J. Smith, C. Rheimschussel, M. Jones and P. Egbert, "Goblins by Spheroidal Weathering" in Eurographics Workshop on Natural Phenomena edited by D. Ebert and S. Merillou. ppg. 1-8, 2007.
Abstract: Height map models of terrain are computationally efficient but can not represent terrain with concave surfaces. We present a data structure and algorithm for generating sandstone goblins using a simulation of spheroidal weathering. Sandstone goblins are a kind of hoodoo which are characterized by rounded concave shapes. The weathering simulation uses bubbles centered on axis aligned voxels to approximate geometry-dependent effects of spheroidal weathering. We demonstrate that the algorithm, together with appropriate surface textures, produces visually plausible goblins at near interactive speeds.