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Simulating Cloth Using Bilinear Elements
Production cloth simulator using bilinear quad elements, improving stability and artist controllability over traditional triangle-based approaches.
Abstract
The most widely used cloth simulation algorithms within the computer graphics community are defined exclusively for triangle meshes. However, assets used in production are often made up of non-planar quadrilaterals. Dividing these elements into triangles and then mapping the displacements back to the original mesh results in faceting and tent-like artifacts when quadrilaterals are rendered as bilinear patches. We propose a method to simulate cloth dynamics on quadrilateral meshes directly, drawing on the well studied Koiter thin sheet model [Koiter 1960] to define consistent elastic energies for linear and bilinear elements. The algorithm elides the need for artifact-prone geometric mapping, and has computation times similar to its fully triangular counterpart.
How to read this
- Category
- Method: a cloth simulation algorithm for quad meshes
- Contributions
- Simulates cloth dynamics directly on quadrilateral meshes instead of triangulating them first
- Defines consistent elastic energies for linear and bilinear elements via the Koiter thin sheet model
- Avoids artifact-prone geometric mapping while keeping computation times similar to triangle-based methods
- Context
- Sits in the lineage of implicit cloth dynamics (Baraff and Witkin's Large Steps in Cloth Simulation) but reformulates the element energy around bilinear quad patches using the Koiter 1960 thin sheet model.Builds on: Large Steps in Cloth Simulation
- Correctness
- Aimed at production assets built from non-planar quads where triangulation causes faceting and tent-like artifacts; the claim of triangle-comparable cost and the soundness of the bilinear energy are best confirmed against the paper's own examples rather than assumed across all garment types.
- Clarity
- Motivation and the artifact it removes are accessible on a first pass; the Koiter-based energy derivation needs a second pass.
- How to read it
- First pass for why quads beat triangulate-then-map; do a second pass on the elastic energy formulation if you need to implement the bilinear element.
Builds on
Built upon by
Nothing yet.
Related work
- Discrete Shells 2003 / SCA
- Dynamic Deformables: Implementation and Production Practicalities 2020 / SIGGRAPH Courses
- Anisotropic Elastoplasticity for Cloth, Knit and Hair Frictional Contact 2017 / TOG
- Nonlinear Cloth Simulation with Isogeometric Analysis 2024 / CASA
Keywords
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