Patent ID: 7227555

Claim:
A system for rendering a scene that includes gaseous phenomena, the system comprising: means for determining a travel distance value through at least one fog object from a reference point to a pixel; means for converting the travel distance value to a fog factor value; and means for determining a pixel color value for the pixel based on the fog factor value, whereby the scene can be rendered using the determined pixel color, wherein the fog object is bounded by a front face and a back face, and wherein the means for determining a travel distance value comprises: means for initializing the pixel color value; means for determining a back distance value from the reference point to the back face of the fog object and adding the back distance value to a color buffer value; and means for determining a front distance value from the reference point to the front face of the fog object and subtracting the front distance value from the color buffer value, wherein the final color buffer value represents a scaled travel distance through the fog object.