A GPU-Based Approach for Real-Time Haptic Rendering of 3D Fluids

Real-time haptic rendering of three-dimensional fluid flow will improve the interactivity and realism of video games and surgical simulators, but it remains a challenging undertaking due to its high computational cost. In this work we propose an innovative GPUbased approach that enables real-time haptic rendering of highresolution 3D Navier-Stokes fluids. We show that moving the vast majority of the computation to the GPU allows for the simulation of touchable fluids at resolutions and frame rates that are significantly higher than any other recent real-time methods without a need for pre-computations [Baxter and Lin 2004; Mora and Lee 2008; Dobashi et al. 2006].