Visual simulation of water currents using a particle‐based behavioural model

Several CG researchers have simulated impressive ocean waves so far. Recently, other researchers have succeeded in simulating waterfalls by employing a mass of particles. However, visual simulation of water currents having complex surfaces, such as mountain streams and turbulent water, still remains a challenging problem thanks to their complicated patterns of behaviour. Effective simulation methods for water currents are expected to have abilities to represent the following remarkable behavioural visual features of water: the appearance of a pool, an obstacle avoidance flow, a fluent flow, a flow into an open space, the collision and the confluence of flows and the occurrence of splashes. In this paper, we present a new type of particle‐based simulation method for complex water currents which is not based on strict fluid dynamics but rather classified into a ‘quasi‐physically‐based’ simulation method constructed on the basis of algorithmic approaches. We first present a simple behavioural model of a ‘water‐particle’. Next, we propose a method for generating CG images of water currents from a set of water‐particles. Finally, we demonstrate the ability of our method by showing several examples of the simulation.