Real-time interactive simulation of smoke using discrete integrable vortex filaments

Abstract

We present a fluid solver for the real-time interactive simulation of inviscid, ideal fluid flow. The simulation is based on the evolution of discrete vortex filaments, which allow a dramatic increase of detail and performance compared to traditional methods used in Computer Graphics. As a fully lagrangian method the simulation is not restricted to a fixed domain and does not suffer from numerical dissipation. Vortex filaments arise naturally in real flows and thus provide an excellent building block for modelling realistic smoke. We present a GPU-based implementation which allows the interactive experimentation with 3D fluid flow on desktop computers and also in distributed immersive virtual environments. © The Eurographics Association 2009.