How to simulate a spinning helicopter rotor visual effect programatically?

Question

I decided to display an animation that conveys to the viewer that a narrow flat surface is spinning really fast(such as an helicopter's rotor blade). Does anyone have any experience in implementing this effect and could provide an implementation? Please remember a rotor on video looks different than it does in real life. I need to make the rotor look like it does in real life and not on video.

Answer 1

The way I've always done it is simply to create a pre-blurred version of the texture, something like this image, map it on a circle, and draw it using alpha blending. Make the circle spin pretty fast and you're done.