Physically-based particle simulation and visualization of pastes and gels

This paper is focused on the question of simulation and visualization of 3D gel and paste dynamic effects. In a first part, we introduce a 3D physically based particle (or mass-interaction) model, with a small number of masses and few powerful interaction parameters, which is able to generate the dynamic features of both gels and pastes. This model proves that the 3D mass-interaction method is relevant for the simulation of such phenomena, without an explicit knowledge of their underlying physics. In a second part, we expose an original rendering process, the Flow Structuring Method that enhances the dynamic properties of the simulation and offers a realistic visualization. This process ignores all the properties of the underlying physical model. It leads to a reconstruction of the spatial structure of the gel (or paste) flow only through an analysis of the output of the simulation which is a set of unorganized points moving in a 3D space. Finally, the paper presents realistic renderings obtained by using implicit surfaces and ray-tracing techniques on the Structured Flow previously obtained.