Abstract: The IR radiation characteristics of exhaust plume is an important target
characteristic of rocket engine. Visualization of exhaust plume’s radiation field has great
significance to early warning and detection of missile. Firstly, the method of grid sequence and
partial polygon fills is improved by dividing rectangle grid into triangles. This arithmetic divides
rectangle into four triangles, and then draws isolines and fills nephogram inside the triangle.
Secondly, this paper introduces the file format of 3DS models and programs to read and redraw
them. Finally, the visualization software based on OpenGL and VC++6.0 is written to draw the
isoline and nephogram of rocket exhaust plume’s radiation field, and combine with the nozzle’s
3DS model. That validates the feasibility of the algorithm.

Key words: rocket engine, visualization, triangle grids, isoline, nephogram, 3DS model