Abstract: In order to enhance the sense of reality in accident scenes of flight simulation, a method
based on particle system and combined with dynamical model is adopted for rendering special effects,
including fire, smoke, explosion, and so on. The traditional point particles are replaced by the
quadrilateral ones. The texture mapping method is presented for the particle system. Each quadrilateral
particle is mapped with the texture of real effect, and the textures are blended with the background
according to a given alpha value. As a result, the special effects have an improved sense of reality and a
good real-time performance. The method of particles’ collision detection is applied to simulate the
smoke spreading and collision with the aircraft’s cabin. Finally, a virtual system of flight accident
simulation is implemented, which is able to simulate the fire and smoke phenomenon happened inside
the cabin and the explosion happened on the engine with a strong sense of reality.

Key words: virtual reality, accident effect, particle system, collision detection, real-time simulation