Real-Time Water Wave Simulation with Surface Advection based on Mass Conservancy

Abstract

In this paper, we present a real-time physical simulation model of water surfaces with a novel method to represent the water mass flow in full three dimensions. In a physical simulation model, the state of the water surfaces is represented by a set of physical values, including height, velocity, and the gradient. The evolution of the velocity field in previous works is handled by a velocity solver based on the Navier-Stokes equations, which occurs as a result of the unevenness of the velocity propagation. In this paper, we integrate the principle of the mass conservation in a fluid of equilateral density to upgrade the height field from the unevenness, which in mathematical terms can be represented by the divergence operator. Thus the model generates waves induced by horizontal velocity, offering a simulation that puts forces added in all direction into account when calculating the values for height and velocity for the next frame. Other effects such as reflection off the boundaries, and interactions with floating objects are involved in our method. The implementation of our method demonstrates to run with fast speed scalable to real-time rates even for large simulation domains. Therefore, our model is appropriate for a real-time and large scale water surface simulation into which the animator wishes to visualize the global fluid flow as a main emphasis.