Dear Fellow Scholars, this is Two Minute Papers with Károly Zsolnai-Fehér.
In a recent video, we showcased a computer graphics technique that simulated the process
of baking, and now, it’s time to discuss a paper that is about simulating how we can
tear this loaf of bread apart.
This paper aligns well with the favorite pastimes of a computer graphics researcher, which is,
of course, destroying virtual objects in a spectacular fashion.
Like the previous work, this new paper also builds on top of the Material Point Method,
a hybrid simulation technique that uses both particles and grids to create these beautiful
animations, however, it traditionally does not support simulating cracking and tearing
phenomena.
Now, have a look at this new work, and marvel at how beautifully this phenomenon is simulated.
With this, we can smash oreos, candy crabs, pumpkins, and much, much more.
This jelly fracture scene is my absolute favorite.
Now, when an artist works with these simulations, the issue of artistic control often comes
up.
After all, this method is meant to compute these phenomena by simulating physics, and
we can’t just instruct physics to be more beautiful…or can we?
Well, this technique offers us plenty of parameters to tune the simulation to our liking, two
that we’ll note today are alpha, which means the hardening, and beta is the cohesion parameter.
So what does that mean exactly?
Well, beta was cohesion, which is the force that holds matter together, so as we go to
the right, the objects stay more intact, and as we go down, the objects shatter into more
and more pieces.
The method offers us more parameters than these, but even with these two, we can really
make the kind of simulation we are looking for.
Ah, what the heck, let’s do two more.
We can even control the way the cracks form with the Mc parameter, which is the speed
of crack propagation, and G is the energy release which, as we look to the right, increases
the object’s resistance to damage.
So how long does this take?
Well, the technique takes its sweet time, the execution timings range from 17 seconds
to about 10 minutes per frame.
This is one of those methods that does something that wasn’t possible before, and it is about
doing things correctly.
And after a paper appears on something that makes the impossible possible, followup research
works get published later that further refine and optimize it.
So, as we say, two more papers down the line, this will run much faster.
Now, a word about the first author of the paper, Joshuah Wolper.
Strictly speaking, it is his third paper, but only the second within computer graphics,
and my goodness, did he come back with guns blazing.
This paper was accepted to the SIGGRAPH conference, which is one of the biggest honors a computer
graphics researcher can get, perhaps equivalent to the olympic gold medal for an athlete.
It definitely is worthy of a gold medal.
Make sure to have a look at the paper in the video description, it is an absolutely beautifully
crafted piece of work.
Congratulations Joshuah!
This episode has been supported by Lambda.
If you're a researcher or a startup looking for cheap GPU compute to run these algorithms,
check out Lambda GPU Cloud.
I've talked about Lambda's GPU workstations in other videos and am happy to tell you that
they're offering GPU cloud services as well.
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IDE lets you easily access your instance right in your browser.
And finally, hold on to your papers, because the Lambda GPU Cloud costs less than half
of AWS and Azure.
Make sure to go to lambdalabs.com/papers and sign up for one of their amazing GPU instances
today.
Our thanks to Lambda for helping us make better videos for you.
Thanks for watching and for your generous support, and I'll see you next time!