Animation Lab: Water Simulation

Water Simulation	Closeup and Quicktime Page
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The water in the pool is modeled as a deformable fluid body discretized into vertical columns. We model the flow between these columns using a net work of virtual pipes. Flow within the pipes is simulated using non-turbulent flow equations driven by forces arising from hydrostatic and external pressure differentials.

A deformable mesh is mapped onto the surface of the fluid to model surface effects. The forces resulting from impacts to this surface are propagated to the volume model as pressure changes. As the net upward velocity of a column increases particles are spawned to model the spray from the splash. The initial positions of the particles are distributed over the area of the surface mesh that corresponds to the rising column. Initial velocities are determined by summing the velocity vectors of the fluid flowing in the pipes under the surface and the upward velocity of the column.

Closeup and Quicktime Page

To conserve the total volume in the system, the volume of a particle is removed from the column that spawned it. Particles are destroyed when they fall below the surface and the particle volume is added to the corresponding column.

These techniques allows us to model the effects of objects impacting the fluid as well as the subsequent waves formed by the disturbance. The water simulation used for the dives used 58,000 control nodes evenly distributed over a 256 square meter area. The number of particles used for the splashes varies with time, reaching a maximum of about 20,000.

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		Project Members Jessica K. Hodgins (Faculty Advisor) jkh@cc.gatech.edu James F. O'Brien obrienj@cc.gatech.edu Questions or comments? Email jkh@cc.gatech.edu