by Doug Millison for SiliconValleyWatcher.com

A University of California, Berkeley researcher has developed a new way to animate viscous, bubbling, and oozing fluids that promises to make "movies, videogames, and even surgical simulations much closer to reality," writes David Pescovitz in the latest issue of Lab Notes, a publication of the university's engineering department.

"For quite some time, we've had mathematical models for simulating idealized solids," Pescowitz quotes James O'Brien, a professor in UCB's Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences. "And we have other models for simulating idealized liquids. But there are many materials that are in between. They may look like solids, but they also can flow like liquids."

Reports Pescovitz, "The algorithm O'Brien developed with graduate students Tolga Goktekin and Adam Bargteil takes existing fluid simulations and adds the ingredient that gives materials like toothpaste, motor oil, and dish soap characteristics of both liquids and solids."

Links:

A Slimy Graphics Algorithm by David Pescovitz, Lab Notes, Volume 4, Issue 8, October/November 2004

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