filename     : Woj09.pdf
entry        : appeared
conference   : SIGGRAPH 2009, New Orleans, USA, August 3-7, 2009
pages        : 76:1 - 76:10
year         : 2009
month        : August
title        : Deforming Meshes that Split and Merge
subtitle     :
author       : Chris Wojtan, Nils Thuerey, Markus Gross, and Greg Turk
booktitle    : SIGGRAPH '09: ACM SIGGRAPH 2009 papers
location     : New Orleans, Louisiana, USA
ISSN/ISBN    : 
editor       : 
publisher    : ACM Press / ACM SIGGRAPH
publ.place   : New York, NY, USA
volume       : 28
issue        : 3
language     : english
keywords     : Physically Based Animation, Deformable Meshes, Fluid Simulation, Topological Control 
abstract     : We present a method for accurately tracking the moving surface
of deformable materials in a manner that gracefully handles topological
changes.We employ a Lagrangian surface tracking method, and we use a triangle
mesh for our surface representation so that fine features can be retained. We
make topological changes to the mesh by first identifying merging or splitting
events at a particular grid resolution, and then locally creating new pieces of
the mesh in the affected cells using a standard isosurface creation method.We
stitch the new, topologically simplified portion of the mesh to the rest of the
mesh at the cell boundaries. Our method detects and treats topological events
with an emphasis on the preservation of detailed features, while simultaneously
simplifying those portions of the material that are not visible. Our surface
tracker is not tied to a particular method for simulating deformable materials.
In particular, we show results from two significantly different simulators: a
Lagrangian FEM simulator with tetrahedral elements, and an Eulerian grid-based
fluid simulator. Although our surface tracking method is generic, it is
particularly well-suited for simulations that exhibit fine surface details and
numerous topological events. Highlights of our results include merging of
viscoplastic materials with complex geometry, a taffy-pulling animation with
many fold and merge events, and stretching and slicing of stiff plastic
material.