Particle-based fluid flow visualization on meshes

Abstract

This paper presents a new method for animating particles on an arbitrary triangular mesh starting from a fluid flow velocity field. The velocity field visualization with particles allows for the production of new special effects. An attraction constraint is introduced to correct a particle's velocity so its trajectory remains near the surface. A repulsion constraint is also used to ensure a better distribution of particles on the surface. Our velocity field is obtained by physically-based heuristics, implemented with a chain model. Our method is robust and yields good results, in particular for interactive simulations, even for systems with several thousand particles.