Directable, high-resolution simulation of fire on the GPU

Abstract

The simulation of believable, photorealistic fire is difficult because fire is highly detailed, fast-moving, and turbulent. Traditional gridbased simulation models require large grids and long simulation times to capture even the coarsest levels of detail. In this paper, we propose a novel combination of coarse particle grid simulation with very fine, view-oriented refinement simulations performed on a GPU. We also propose a simple, GPU-based volume rendering scheme. The resulting images of fire produced by the proposed techniques are extremely detailed and can be integrated seamlessly into film-resolution images.

Our refinement technique takes advantage of perceptive limitations and likely viewing behavior to split the refinement stage into separable, parallel tasks. Multiple independent GPUs are employed to rapidly refine final simulations for rendering, allowing for rapid artist turnaround time and very high resolutions.

Directability is achieved by allowing virtually any user-defined particle behavior as an input to the initial coarse simulation. The physical criteria enforced by the coarse stage are minimal and could be easily implemented using any of the wide variety of commercially available fluid simulation tools. The GPU techniques utilized by our refinement stage are simple and widely available on even consumer-grade GPUs, lowering the overall implementation cost of the proposed system.

References

1. Bridson, R., Hourihan, J., and Nordenstam, M. 2007. Curl-noise for procedural fluid flow. ACM Trans. Graph. (SIGGRAPH Proc.) 26, 1.
2. Chui, C. K. 1992. An Introduction to Wavelets. Academic Press Professional, Inc.
3. Fedkiw, R., Stam, J., and Jensen, H. 2001. Visual simulation of smoke. In Proc. of ACM SIGGRAPH 2001, 15--22.
4. Feldman, B., O'Brien, J., and Arikan, O. 2003. Animating suspended particle explosions. ACM Trans. Graph. (SIGGRAPH Proc.) 22, 3, 708--715.
5. Foster, N., and Fedkiw, R. 2001. Practical animation of liquids. In Proc. of ACM SIGGRAPH 2001, 23--30.
6. Foster, N., and Metaxas, D. 1997. Controlling fluid animation. In Comput. Graph. Int., 178--188.
7. Golub, G., and Loan, C. 1989. Matrix Computations. The John Hopkins University Press.
8. Harris, M. J. 2003. Real-Time Cloud Simulation and Rendering. PhD thesis, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
9. Hong, J.-M., Shinar, T., and Fedkiw, R. 2007. Wrinkled flames and cellular patterns. ACM Trans. Graph. (SIGGRAPH Proc.) 26, 3, 1188--1198.
10. Lamorlette, A., and Foster, N. 2002. Structural modeling of flames for a production environment. ACM Trans. Graph. (SIGGRAPH Proc.) 21, 3, 729--735.
11. Neff, M., and Fiume, E. 1999. A visual model for blast waves and fracture. In Proc. of Graph. Interface 1999, 193--202.
12. Nguyen, D., Fedkiw, R., and Jensen, H. 2002. Physically based modeling and animation of fire. ACM Trans. Graph. (SIGGRAPH Proc.) 21, 721--728.
13. Nishita, T., and Dobashi, Y. 2001. Modeling and rendering of various natural phenomena consisting of particles. In Proc. of Comput. Graph. Int. 2001, 149--156.
14. Olano, M. 2005. Modified noise for evaluation on graphics hardware. In Graphics Hardware (2005), 105--110.
15. Rasmussen, N., Nguyen, D., Geiger, W., and Fedkiw, R. 2003. Smoke simulation for large scale phenomena. ACM Trans. Graph. (SIGGRAPH Proc.) 22, 703--707.
16. Reeves, W. 1983. Particle systems - a technique for modeling a class of fuzzy objects. In Comput. Graph. (Proc. of SIGGRAPH 83), vol. 17, 359--376.
17. Selle, A., Rasmussen, N., and Fedkiw, R. 2005. A vortex particle method for smoke, water and explosions. ACM Trans. Graph. (SIGGRAPH Proc.) 24, 3, 910--914.
18. Stam, J., and Fiume, E. 1995. Depicting fire and other gaseous phenomena using diffusion process. In Proc. of SIGGRAPH 1995, 129--136.
19. Stam, J. 1999. Stable fluids. In Proc. of SIGGRAPH 99, 121--128.
20. Steinhoff, J., and Underhill, D. 1994. Modification of the Euler equations for "vorticity confinement": Application to the computation of interacting vortex rings. Phys. of Fluids 6, 8, 2738--2744.
21. Yngve, G., O'Brien, J., and Hodgins, J. 2000. Animating explosions. In Proc. SIGGRAPH 2000, vol. 19, 29--36.
22. Zhu, Y., and Bridson, R. 2005. Animating sand as a fluid. ACM Trans. Graph. (SIGGRAPH Proc.) 24, 3, 965--972.

Index Terms

• Computing methodologies

  • Computer graphics

    • Animation

      • Physical simulation

    • Shape modeling

• Mathematics of computing

  • Continuous mathematics

    • Topology

      • Geometric topology