2017 Theses Doctoral

Surface-Only Simulation of Fluids

Da, Fang

Surface-only simulation methods for fluid dynamics are those that perform computation only on a surface representation, without relying on any volumetric discretization. Such methods have superior asymptotic complexity in time and memory than the traditional volumetric discretization approaches, and thus are more tractable for simulation of complex fluid phenomena. Although for most computer graphics applications and many engineering applications, the interior flow inside the fluid phases is typically not of interest, the vast majority of existing numerical techniques still rely on discretization of the volumetric domain. My research first tackles the mesh-based surface tracking problem in the multimaterial setting, and then proposes surface-only simulation solutions for two scenarios: the soap-films and bubbles, and the general 3D liquids. Throughout these simulation approaches, all computation takes place on the surface, and volumetric discretization is entirely eliminated.