Dear Fellow Scholars, this is Two Minute Papers with Dr. Károly Zsolnai-Fehér.
Yes, you see it correctly, this is a paper on paper.
The paper-paper if you will.
And today, you will witness some amazing works in the domain of computer graphics and physics
simulations.
There is so much progress in this area.
For instance, we can simulate honey coiling, baking and melting, bouncy jelly and many
related phenomena.
And none of these techniques use any machine learning, these are all good old-fashined
handcrafted algorithms.
And using these, we can even simulate stretching and compression, to the point that muscle
movement simulations are possible.
When attaching the muscles to bones, as we move the character, the muscles move and contract
accurately.
What’s more, this work can even perform muscle growth simulations.
So, are we done here?
Did these ingenious computer graphics researchers max out physics simulations, where there is
nothing else to do?
Oh no, of course not!
Look, this footage is from an earlier graphics paper that simulates viscosity and melting
fluids, and what I would like you to look at here is not what it does, but what it doesn’t
do.
It starts melting these Armadillos beautifully, however, what there is something that it doesn’t
do, which is, mixing.
The materials start separate, and remain separate.
Can we improve upon that somehow?
Well, this new paper promises that and so much more that it truly makes my head spin.
For instance, it can simulate hyperelastic, elastoplastic, viscous, fracturing and multiphase
coupling behaviors, and most importantly, all of these can be simulated within the same
framework.
Not one paper for each behavior, one paper that can do all of these.
That is absolutely insane.
What does all that mean?
Well, I say, let’s see them all right now through 5 super fun experiments.
Experiment number one.
Wet papers.
As you see, this technique handles the ball of water.
Okay, we’ve seen that before.
And what else?
Well, it handles the paper too, okay, that’s getting better, but, hold on to your papers,
and look, it also handles the water’s interaction with the paper.
Now we’re talking!
And careful with holding on to that paper, because if you do it correctly, this might
happen.
As you see, the arguments contained within this paper really hold water.
Experiment number two, fracturing.
As you know, most computer graphics papers on physics simulation contain creative solutions
to destroying Armadillos in the most spectacular fashion.
This work, is, of course, no different.
Yum.
Experiment number three.
Dissolution.
Here, we take a glass of water, add some starch powder, it starts piling up, and then, slowly
starts to dissolve.
And note that the water itself also becomes stickier during the process.
Number four.
Dipping.
We first take a piece of biscuit, and dip it into the water.
Note that the coupling works correctly here, in other words, the water now moves, but what
is even better is that the biscuit started absorbing some of that water.
And now, when we rip it apart, oh yes.
Excellent!
And as a light transport researcher by trade, I love watching the shape of the biscuits
distorted here due to the refraction of the water.
This is a beautiful demonstration of that phenomenon.
And, number five.
The dog!
What kind of dog you ask?
Well, this virtual dog gets a big splash of water, starts shaking it off, and manages
to get rid of most of it.
But only most of it.
And it can do all of these, using one algorithm.
Not one per each of these beautiful phenomena, one technique can perform all of these.
That is absolutely amazing.
But it does not stop there, it can also simulate snow, and it not only does it well, but it
does that swiftly.
How swiftly?
It simulated this a bit faster than one frame per second.
The starch powder experiment was about one minute per frame, and the slowest example
was the dog shaking off the ball of water.
The main reason for this is that it required near a quarter million particles of water
and for hair, and when the algorithm computes these interactions between them, it can only
advance the time in very small increments.
It has to do this a hundred thousand times for each second of footage that you see here.
Based on how much computation there is to do, that is really, really fast.
And, don’t forget that the First Law Of Papers says that research is a process.
Do not look at where we are, look at where we will be two more papers down the line.
And even now, the generality of this system is truly something to behold.
Congratulations to the authors on this amazing paper.
What a time to be alive!
So, if you wish to read a beautifully written paper today that does not dissolve in your
hands, I highly
recommend this one.
Thanks for watching and for your generous support, and I'll see you next time!