Water Drops on Surfaces

Water motion is a highly complex phenomenon. From ocean waves to raindrops, water is described by a wide range of shapes and is affected by a wide range of forces. This paper presents a physically-based method of modeling the latter phenomenon raindrops. This model can handle bodies of water with varying underlying terrain, as well as many different fluids, but cannot represent spray systems, which are commonly seen when waves collide with solid masses. However, in the context of this research, this model is used strictly for water drops on surfaces. At the heart of this model is an underlying graph (or grid), as proposed in [Kass and Miller 1990] and later refined in [Mould and Yang 1997]. Representing a volume of water via this method allows for a quick and accurate representation of various water phenomena. With this model intact, I can model each node (or grid point) in the graph as a column of water which is connected to its neighbours. In other words, this is a grid based simulation. Because I limit the context of this research to water drops on surfaces, I do not break the columns up into cells. This paper intends to use the preceding model to simulate water drops on surfaces. It extends the model to account for uneven distributions of forces on a surface as well as the strength between water molecules. ∗e-mail: [email protected] CR Categories: I.3.7 [COMPUTER GRAPHICS]: ThreeDimensional Graphics and Realism—Animation;