Discrete Viscous Sheets

Christopher Batty¹ Andres Uribe¹ Basile Audoly² Eitan Grinspun¹

¹Columbia University ²UPMC Univ. Paris 06 & CNRS

Abstract

We present the first reduced-dimensional technique to simulate the dynamics of thin sheets of viscous incompressible liquid in three dimensions. Beginning from a discrete Lagrangian model for elastic thin shells, we apply the Stokes-Rayleigh analogy to derive a simple yet consistent model for viscous forces. We incorporate nonlinear surface tension forces with a formulation based on minimizing discrete surface area, and preserve the quality of triangular mesh elements through local remeshing operations. Simultaneously, we track and evolve the thickness of each triangle to exactly conserve liquid volume. This approach enables the simulation of extremely thin sheets of viscous liquids, which are difficult to animate with existing volumetric approaches. We demonstrate our method with examples of several characteristic viscous sheet behaviors, including stretching, buckling, sagging, and wrinkling.

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BibTeX

@article{DVS2012,
    author = {Christopher Batty and Andres Uribe and Basile Audoly and Eitan Grinspun},
    title = {Discrete Viscous Sheets},
    journal = {ACM Transactions on Graphics (Proceedings of SIGGRAPH 2012)},
    year = {2012},
    volume = {31},
    number = {4},
    pages = {113:1--113:7}
}