Category: Deformables

Scalable Partitioning for Parallel Position Based Dynamics

Marco Fratarcangeli, Fabio Pellacini

We introduce a practical partitioning technique designed for parallelizing Position Based Dynamics, and exploit- ing the ubiquitous multi-core processors present in current commodity GPUs. The input is a set of particles whose dynamics is influenced by spatial constraints. In the initialization phase, we build a graph in which each node corresponds to a constraint and two constraints are connected by an edge if they influence at least one com- mon particle. We introduce a novel greedy algorithm for inserting additional constraints (phantoms) in the graph such that the resulting topology is qˆ-colourable, where qˆ ≥ 2 is an arbitrary number. We color the graph, and the constraints with the same color are assigned to the same partition. Then, the set of constraints belonging to each partition is solved in parallel during the animation phase. We demonstrate this by using our partitioning technique; the performance hit caused by the GPU kernel calls is significantly decreased, leaving unaffected the visual quality, robustness and speed of serial position based dynamics.

Scalable Partitioning for Parallel Position Based Dynamics

Yarn-Level Simulation of Woven Cloth

Gabriel Cirio, Jorge Lopez-Moreno, David Miraut, Miguel A. Otaduy

The large-scale mechanical behavior of woven cloth is determined by the mechanical properties of the yarns, the weave pattern, and frictional contact between yarns. Using standard simulation methods for elastic rod models and yarn-yarn contact handling, the simulation of woven garments at realistic yarn densities is deemed intractable. This paper introduces an efficient solution for simulating woven cloth at the yarn level. Central to our solution is a novel discretization of interlaced yarns based on yarn crossings and yarn sliding, which allows modeling yarn-yarn contact implicitly, avoiding contact handling at yarn crossings altogether. Combined with models for internal yarn forces and inter-yarn frictional contact, as well as a massively parallel solver, we are able to simulate garments with hundreds of thousands of yarn crossings at practical framerates on a desktop machine, showing combinations of large-scale and fine-scale effects induced by yarn-level mechanics.

Yarn-Level Simulation of Woven Cloth

Interactive Material Design Using Model Reduction

Hongyi Xu, Yijing Li, Yong Chen, Jernej Barbic

We demonstrate an interactive method to create heterogeneous continuous deformable materials on complex three-dimensional meshes. The user specifies displacements and internal elastic forces at a chosen set of mesh vertices. Our system then rapidly solves an optimization problem to compute a corresponding heterogeneous spatial distribution of material properties, using the Finite Element Method (FEM) analysis. We apply our method to linear and nonlinear isotropic deformable materials. We demonstrate that solving the problem interactively in the full-dimensional space of individual tetrahedron material values is not practical. Instead, we propose a new model reduction method that projects the material space to a low dimensional space of material modes. Our model reduction accelerates optimization by two orders of magnitude, and makes the convergence much
more robust, making it possible to interactively design material distributions on complex meshes.We apply our method to precise control of contact forces and control of pressure over large contact areas between rigid and deformable objects for ergonomics. Our tetrahedron-based dithering method can efficiently convert continuous material distributions into discrete ones and we demonstrate its precision via FEM simulation. We physically display our distributions using haptics, as well as demonstrate how haptics can aid in the material design. The produced heterogeneous material distributions can also be used in computer animation applications.

Interactive Material Design Using Model Reduction

Realistic Biomechanical Simulation and Control of Human Swimming

Weiguang Si, Sung-Hee Lee, Eftychios Sifakis, Demetri Terzopoulos

We address the challenging problem of controlling a complex biomechanical model of the human body to synthesize realistic swimming animation. Our human model includes all of the relevant articular bones and muscles, including 103 bones (comprising 163 articular degrees of freedom) plus a total of 823 muscle actuators embedded in a finite element model of the musculotendinous soft tissues of the body that produces realistic deformations. To coordinate the numerous muscle actuators in order to produce natural swimming movements, we develop a biomimetically motivated motor control system based on Central Pattern Generators (CPG), which learns to produce activation signals that drive the numerous muscle actuators.

Realistic Biomechanical Simulation and Control of Human Swimming

Strain Limiting for Clustered Shape Matching

Adam W. Bargteil, Ben Jones

In this paper, we advocate explicit symplectic Euler integration and strain limiting in a shape matching simulation framework. The resulting approach resembles not only previous work on shape matching and strain limiting, but also the recently popular position-based dynamics.However, unlike this previous work, our approach reduces to explicit integration under small strains, but remains stable in the presence of non-linearities.

Strain Limiting for Clustered Shape Matching

Multi-layer skin simulation with adaptive constraints

Pengbo Li, Paul Kry

We present an approach for physics based simulation of the wrinkling of multi-layer skin with heterogeneous material properties. Each layer of skin is simulated with an adaptive mesh, with the different layers coupled via constraints that only permit wrinkle deformation at wavelengths that match the physical properties of the multi-layer model. We use texture maps to define varying elasticity and thickness of the skin layers, and design our constraints as continuous functions, which we discretize at run time to match the changing adaptive mesh topology. In our examples, we use blend shapes to drive the bottom layer, and we present a variety of examples of simulations that demonstrate small wrinkles on top of larger wrinkles, which is a typical pattern seen on human skin. Finally, we show that our physics-based wrinkles can be used in the automatic creation of wrinkle maps, allowing the visual details of our high resolution simulations to be produced at real time speeds.

Multi-layer skin simulation with adaptive constraints

Windy Trees: Computing Stress Response for Developmental Tree Models

Sören Pirk, Till Niese, Torsten Hädrich, Bedrich Benes, Oliver Deussen

We present a novel method for combining developmental tree models with turbulent wind fields. The tree geometry is created from internal growth functions of the developmental model and its response to external stress is induced by a physically-plausible wind field that is simulated by Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH). Our tree models are dynamically evolving complex systems that (1) react in real-time to high-frequent changes of the wind simulation; and (2) adapt to long-term wind stress. We extend this process by wind-related effects such as branch breaking as well as bud abrasion and drying. In our interactive system the user can adjust the parameters of the growth model, modify wind properties and resulting forces, and define the tree’s long-term response to wind. By using graphics hardware, our implementation runs at interactive rates for moderately large scenes composed of up to 20 tree models.

Windy Trees: Computing Stress Response for Developmental Tree Models

Coupling Hair with Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics Fluids

Wei-Chin Lin

We present a two-way coupling technique for simulating the complex interaction between hair and fluids. In our approach, the motion of hair and fluids is simulated by evaluating the hydrodynamic forces among them based on boundary handling techniques used in SPH (Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics) fluids. When hair makes contact with fluids, water absorption inside the hair volume can be simulated with a diffusion process by treating the hair volume as porous media with anisotropic permeability. The saturation of each hair strand is then used to derive the adhesive force between wet hair strands. This enables us to simulate the formation of hair clumps dynamically without the need to employ post clumping processes. The proposed method can be easily applied to any SPH fluid solvers as well as various hair models.

Coupling Hair with Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics Fluids

Parallel Particles (P^2): A Parallel Position Based Approach for Fast and Stable Simulation of Granular Materials

Daniel Holz

Granular materials exhibit a large number of diverse physical phenomena which makes their numerical simulation challenging. When set in motion they flow almost like a fluid, while they can present high shear strength when at rest. Those macroscopic effects result from the material’s microstructure: a particle skeleton with interlocking particles which stick to and slide across each other, producing soil cohesion and friction. For the purpose of Earthmoving equipment operator training, we developed Parallel Particles (P2), a fast and stable position based granular material simulator which models inter-particle friction and adhesion and captures the physical nature of soil to an extend sufficient for training. Our parallel solver makes the approach scalable and applicable to modern multi-core architectures yielding the simulation speed required in this application. Using a regularization procedure, we successfully model visco-elastic particle interactions on the position level which provides real, physical parameters allowing for intuitive tuning. We employ the proposed technique in an Excavator training simulator and demonstrate that it yields physically plausible results at interactive to real-time simulation rates.

Parallel Particles (P^2): A Parallel Position Based Approach for Fast and Stable Simulation of Granular Materials

Animation of Deformable Bodies with Quadratic Bézier Finite Elements

Adam W. Bargteil, Elaine Cohen

In this paper, we investigate the use of quadratic finite elements for graphical animation of deformable bodies. We consider both integrating quadratic elements with conventional linear elements to achieve a computationally efficient adaptive-degree simulation framework as well as wholly quadratic elements for the simulation of non-linear rest shapes. In both cases, we adopt the Bézier basis functions and employ a co-rotational linear strain formulation. As with linear elements, the co-rotational formulation allows us to precompute per-element stiffness matrices, resulting in substantial computational savings. We present several examples that demonstrate the advantages of quadratic elements in general and our adaptive-degree system in particular. Furthermore, we demonstrate, for the first time in computer graphics, animations of volumetric deformable bodies with non-linear rest shapes.

Animation of Deformable Bodies with Quadratic Bezier Finite Elements