CS 348C Assignment #2: Position-based Dynamics

• Getting started: Start by familiarizing yourself with the starter code, and modifying it to support the position-based time-stepping scheme, as described in the PBD paper.
• Visual debugging: The simple OpenGL renderer provided allows each particle to be rendered with its own color. Modify the code so that you can easily set each particle or triangle's color. Use the colors to help you debug each stage of your pipeline by displaying relevant quantities. Try changing the color of the particles to display simulation state.
• Particle-plane collisions: To keep the particles from passing through the floor, or leaving the container, you need to implement position-based collision response with the computational cell boundaries. The basic functionality of the assignment is to simulate fluid in a rectangular box of fixed size. For now, modify the inner position-correction iteration so that the particle position are kept from leaving the box when bouncing around under the influence of gravity. You can implement each using a general particle-plane inequality constraint (with strength k=1), and then later reuse it for other plane constraints.
  
• Cloth constraints: Following section 4 of [PBD], implement the core constraints and constraint gradients needed for (1) edge-based stretching constraints, and then (2) bending constraints. Formulae for evaluating nontrivial gradients are available in the paper's Appendix.  You should represent each piece of cloth in your simulation using a Cloth Object, with associated simulation parameters and constraints. Cloth vertex/particle mass should be computed using the density of the cloth, rho, times 1/3 of the sum of the surrounding triangle areas.  Implement the position updates associated with stretch and bend constraints, using iterative Gauss-Seidel updates. Be sure to use the accumulated Lagrange multiplier (quasi-Newton) approach from [Macklin et al. 2016] for convergent behavior. Make sure to support multiple constraint passes per time-step for best results.
  
• Interaction: Implement a position-level mouse constraint to allow you to pull on cloth vertices. Your simulation should remain stable during the interaction. You will need to need to support particle picking, by finding the particle closest to your mouse position. This can be implemented in many ways, but probably the easiest is to determine the line associated with your mouse position/ray, and then scan all particles to find the particle closest to that line using 3D geometry. The mouse particle goal position can be determined by mouse position changes in the parallel view plane. Manipulated particle position/velocity can be overwritten, and an inverse mass of zero used to allow complete control. Not everyone has taken a 3D Graphics course here, so if you are not familiar with 3D model/view geometry, please ask for help.
  
• Attachments: Pin constraints should be implemented, so that vertices can be fixed in space and/or attached to other moving objects. This can be achieved using position-level updates, and by setting the particle inverse mass value, w, to zero, i.e., giving it infinite mass. You should provide an example with cloth suspended in space, e.g., a rectangular piece of cloth hanging from two corners.
• Damping: Implement the "rigid damping" approximation (described in section 3.5 [PBD]). Initially, to get things going, you could just implement a simple damping force, such as f = -c*v or a velocity scaling filter (e.g., "v *= 0.9999"). However, these models produce an "underwater" damping effect, whereas the "rigid damping" model does not damp rigid-body motion.
• Balloons: To simulate closed objects with air inside, such as a inflatable ball, implement the "cloth balloon" constraint (see section 4.4  [PBD]).
• Collisions with rigid obstacles can be approximated using local vertex-plane constraints as described in the paper. In order to detect collisions for purposes of generating time-step-specific constraints, you should use a spatial acceleration data structure, such as a bounding volume hierarchy (BVH) or (uniform) spatial subdivision. Robust collision responses with rigid obstacles will enable you to implement challenging scenarios (such as the example shown at the top of this page).  Alternately, collisions with volumetric rigid obstacles can be implemented robustly if you can tell if a vertex is inside or outside the object, since then you can then detect and "push" vertices to the surface during the constraint projection phase. Implicit function definitions (such as for a sphere), or signed distance fields, can be useful representations for volumetric objects.

• Interactive modification of simulation parameters (such as constraint "stiffness," or cloth density, gravity, etc.) can be implemented using GUI sliders, etc., and can enable fun interactions. [Difficulty: Easy]
  
• Cloth self-collisions can be approximated for vertex-triangle collisions using vertex-plane constraints as described in the paper. They will require all-pairs proximity checks, so feel free to adapt your neighbor-finding code from the first assignment. [Difficulty: Medium]
• Animate something: Use your simulator to implement at least one nontrivial animation scenario. You can use the OBJ mesh loader to load a variety of meshes that you can either build, or download (e.g., from TurboSquid), to help you build an interesting scenario. Setting initial positions and velocities of your objects, can be used to create interesting setups, e.g., crash scenarios, running objects through gears, etc. [Difficulty: Varies]
• Just add water: If you are feeling ambitious, you can combine your cloth simulator with the previous Particle Based Fluids implementation from assignment #1. You will need to implement fluid-cloth particle collisions to ensure that fluid particles do not pass through the cloth, and that contact-based momentum is transferred between cloth and fluid particles. Alternately, this would make a fun final project in the course. [Difficulty: Hard]

• Document: A brief written document (in txt or PDF) that details what you did, your findings, and who you discussed the assignment with, etc.  
  
• Include comparisons or analysis/results demonstrating the behavior of your implementation.
• Citation: 
  
• Include the names of people that you discussed the assignment details with.
• Include citations of external resources (books, webpages, etc.) that you used in your R&D.
  
• Code: Documented software implementation derived from the Java starter code, or based on an analogous framework in another language, e.g., C++.
• Results: Your creative simulation artifacts, videos, images, etc.   
• We will run your software to evaluate your implementation, and/or ask you to provide a demo. However including videos that demonstrate the requested features, and interesting behavior are strongly encouraged.
  
• Submit as a group: If you are working with a partner, be sure to form a two-person group, and submit your zip file as a group.
• Late submission: Keep in mind this is a short 2-week assignment. If for some reason you will not be able to meet the Tuesday, Nov 15, 2016 (midnight) deadline, you can still submit by Friday, Nov 18, 2016 (midnight) for a mild 10% late penalty. Assignments later than this deadline are highly discouraged--also, it's Thanksgiving Break.
  

• Jan. Bender, Matthias. Müller, Miles. Macklin, Position-Based Simulation Methods in Computer Graphics, EUROGRAPHICS Tutorial Notes, 2015, Zürich, May 4-8. [Course Notes] [Slides]
  
• Miles Macklin, Matthias Müller, Nuttapong Chentanez: XPBD: Position-Based Simulation of Compliant Constrained Dynamics in Proceedings of ACM Motion in Games, San Francisco, October 2016.  [PDF][Slides][Video][Youtube] (An improved PBD approach)
• M. Müller, B. Heidelberger, M. Hennix, J. Ratcliff, Position Based Dynamics, Proceedings of Virtual Reality Interactions and Physical Simulations (VRIPhys), pp 71-80, Madrid, November 6-7 2006, Best Paper Award, PDF, (video), (slides)
• Jos Stam, Nucleus: Towards a Unified Dynamics Solver for Computer Graphics, 2009 Conference Proceedings: IEEE International Conference on Computer-Aided Design and Computer Graphics, pp. 1-11, 2009. (related talk)
  
• T. Jakobsen, Advanced Character Physics, Game Developer Conference, 2001.