mFISHSKY

mFISHSKY is a cross-disciplinary open-source software framework designed for realistic sky rendering and atmospheric visualization. It provides a physically based sky model, sun and moon positioning, and an atmospheric scattering pipeline intended for real-time applications as well as offline rendering. The project aims to unify radiative transfer calculations with accessible tooling for developers, researchers, and digital artists.

Origin and governance: The project arises from a collaborative effort among researchers and practitioners in computer graphics and environmental sciences. Development is community-driven, with a permissive license and an open contribution model. Releases are coordinated by a rotating maintainers group, supported by a public roadmap and issue tracker.

Architecture and core modules: The framework comprises a sky model module, an atmospheric scattering module, a sun and celestial bodies module, a data layer for atmospheric profiles and spectral data, and a rendering backend that can target CPU or GPU. It uses a plugin interface for weather presets, aerosol and turbidity profiles, and spectral data sources. The architecture supports interoperability with major rendering engines through adapters and export formats, plus a lightweight API for parameter control and a real-time preview viewer.

Features and capabilities: Real-time sky and sun shading, twilight and dawn variants, turbidity and aerosol scattering controls, dynamic weather, spectral rendering options, and color-accurate daylight simulations. It offers environment maps, physically based material shading integration, and thorough documentation for developers and researchers.

Impact and reception: In user communities, mFISHSKY is valued for visual fidelity and flexible integration but noted for complexity and performance trade-offs on lower-end hardware. Ongoing development emphasizes optimization, expanded data libraries, improved authoring tools, and broader platform support.

See also: sky rendering, atmospheric scattering, physically based rendering, path tracing.