A Dimension‐reduced Pressure Solver for Liquid Simulations

This work presents a method for efficiently simplifying the pressure projection step in a liquid simulation. We first devise a straightforward dimension reduction technique that dramatically reduces the cost of solving the pressure projection. Next, we introduce a novel change of basis that satisfies free‐surface boundary conditions exactly, regardless of the accuracy of the pressure solve. When combined, these ideas greatly reduce the computational complexity of the pressure solve without compromising free surface boundary conditions at the highest level of detail. Our techniques are easy to parallelize, and they effectively eliminate the computational bottleneck for large liquid simulations.     

Fluid Simulation with Articulated Bodies

We present an algorithm for creating realistic animations of characters that are swimming through fluids. Our approach combines dynamic simulation with data-driven kinematic motions (motion capture data) to produce realistic animation in a fluid. The interaction of the articulated body with the fluid is performed by incorporating joint constraints with rigid animation and by extending a solid/fluid coupling method to handle articulated chains. Our solver takes as input the current state of the simulation and calculates the angular and linear accelerations of the connected bodies needed to match a particular motion sequence for the articulated body. These accelerations are used to estimate the forces and torques that are then applied to each joint. Based on this approach, we demonstrate simulated swimming results for a variety of different strokes, including crawl, backstroke, breaststroke, and butterfly. The ability to have articulated bodies interact with fluids also allows us to generate simulations of simple water creatures that are driven by simple controllers.     

Narrow Band FLIP for Liquid Simulations

The Fluid Implicit Particle method (FLIP) for liquid simulations uses particles to reduce numerical dissipation and provide important visual cues for events like complex splashes and small‐scale features near the liquid surface. Unfortunately, FLIP simulations can be computationally expensive, because they require a dense sampling of particles to fill the entire liquid volume. Furthermore, the vast majority of these FLIP particles contribute nothing to the fluid's visual appearance, especially for larger volumes of liquid. We present a method that only uses FLIP particles within a narrow band of the liquid surface, while efficiently representing the remaining inner volume on a regular grid. We show that a naïve realization of this idea introduces unstable and uncontrollable energy fluctuations, and we propose a novel coupling scheme between FLIP particles and regular grid which overcomes this problem. Our method drastically reduces the particle count and simulation times while yielding results that are nearly indistinguishable from regular FLIP simulations. Our approach is easy to integrate into any existing FLIP implementation.     

Controllable motion synthesis in a gaseous medium

The generation of realistic motion satisfying user-defined requirements is one of the most important goals of computer animation. Our aim in this paper is the synthesis of realistic, controllable motion for lightweight natural objects in a gaseous medium. We formulate this problem as a large-scale spacetime optimization with user controls and fluid motion equations as constraints. We have devised novel and effective methods to make this large optimization tractable. Initial trajectories are generated with data-driven synthesis based on stylistic motion planning. Smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) is used during optimization to produce fluid simulations at a reasonable computational cost, while interesting vortex-based fluid motion is generated by recording the presence of vortices in the initial trajectories and maintaining them through optimization. Object rotations are refined as a postprocess to enhance the visual quality of the results. We demonstrate our techniques on a number of animations involving single or multiple objects.     

A Practical Method for Animating Anisotropic Elastoplastic Materials

This paper introduces a simple method for simulating highly anisotropic elastoplastic material behaviors like the dissolution of fibrous phenomena (splintering wood, shredding bales of hay) and materials composed of large numbers of irregularly-shaped bodies (piles of twigs, pencils, or cards). We introduce a simple transformation of the anisotropic problem into an equivalent isotropic one, and we solve this new “fictitious” isotropic problem using an existing simulator based on the material point method. Our approach results in minimal changes to existing simulators, and it allows us to re-use popular isotropic plasticity models like the Drucker-Prager yield criterion instead of inventing new anisotropic plasticity models for every phenomenon we wish to simulate.     

Making Procedural Water Waves Boundary-aware

The “procedural” approach to animating ocean waves is the dominant algorithm for animating larger bodies of water in interactive applications as well as in off-line productions — it provides high visual quality with a low computational demand. In this paper, we widen the applicability of procedural water wave animation with an extension that guarantees the satisfaction of boundary conditions imposed by terrain while still approximating physical wave behavior. In combination with a particle system that models wave breaking, foam, and spray, this allows us to naturally model waves interacting with beaches and rocks. Our system is able to animate waves at large scales at interactive frame rates on a commodity PC.     

Extended Narrow Band FLIP for Liquid Simulations

The Fluid Implicit Particle method (FLIP) reduces numerical dissipation by combining particles with grids. To improve performance, the subsequent narrow band FLIP method (NB‐FLIP) uses a FLIP‐based fluid simulation only near the liquid surface and a traditional grid‐based fluid simulation away from the surface. This spatially‐limited FLIP simulation significantly reduces the number of particles and alleviates a computational bottleneck. In this paper, we extend the NB‐FLIP idea even further, by allowing a simulation to transition between a FLIP‐like fluid simulation and a grid‐based simulation in arbitrary locations, not just near the surface. This approach leads to even more savings in memory and computation, because we can concentrate the particles only in areas where they are needed. More importantly, this new method allows us to seamlessly transition to smooth implicit surface geometry wherever the particle‐based simulation is unnecessary. Consequently, our method leads to a practical algorithm for avoiding the noisy surface artifacts associated with particle‐based liquid simulations, while simultaneously maintaining the benefits of a FLIP simulation in regions of dynamic motion.     

Laser-Empowered Random Metasurfaces for White Light Printed Image Multiplexing

Printed image multiplexing based on the design of metasurfaces has attracted much interest in the past decade. Optical switching between different images displayed directly on the metasurface is performed by altering the parameters of the incident light such as polarization, wavelength, or incidence angle. When using white light, only two-image multiplexing is implemented with polarization switching. Such metasurfaces are made of nanostructures perfectly controlled individually, which provide high-resolution pixels but small images and involve long fabrication processes. Here, it is demonstrated that laser processing of nanocomposites offers a versatile low-cost, high-speed method with large area processing capabilities for controlling the statistical properties of random metasurfaces, allowing up to three-image multiplexing under white light illumination. By independently controlling absorption and interference effects, colors in reflection and transmission can be varied independently yielding two-image multiplexing under white light. Using anisotropy of plasmonic nanoparticles, a third image can be multiplexed and revealed through polarization changes. The design strategy, the fundamental properties, and the versatility of implementation of these laser-empowered random metasurfaces are discussed. The technique, applied on flexible substrate, can find applications in information encryption or functional switchable optical devices, and offers many advantages for visual security and anticounterfeiting.     

Multiple token‐based neighbor discovery for directional sensor networks

Directional sensor networks (DSNs) can significantly improve the performance of a network by employing energy efficient communication protocols. Neighbor discovery is a vital part of medium access control (MAC) and routing protocol, which influences the establishment of communication between neighboring nodes. Neighbor discovery is a challenging task in DSNs due to the limited coverage provided by directional antennas. Furthermore, in these networks, communication can only take place when the beams of the directional antennas are pointed toward each other. In this article, we propose a novel multiple token‐based neighbor discovery (MuND) protocol, in which multiple tokens are transmitted based on an area exploration algorithm. The performance of the protocol is evaluated using the Cooja simulator. The simulation results reveal that the proposed MuND protocol achieves lower neighbor discovery latency, with a 100% neighbor discovery ratio, and has a relatively low communication overhead and low energy consumption.