View-Dependent Multiscale Fluid Simulation

Fluid flows are highly nonlinear and nonstationary, with turbulence occurring and developing at different length and time scales. In real-life observations, the multiscale flow generates different visual impacts depending on the distance to the viewer. We propose a new fluid simulation framework that adaptively allocates computational resources according to the viewer's position. First, a 3D empirical mode decomposition scheme is developed to obtain the velocity spectrum of the turbulent flow. Then, depending on the distance to the viewer, the fluid domain is divided into a sequence of nested simulation partitions. Finally, the multiscale fluid motions revealed in the velocity spectrum are distributed nonuniformly to these view-dependent partitions, and the mixed velocity fields defined on different partitions are solved separately using different grid sizes and time steps. The fluid flow is solved at different spatial-temporal resolutions, such that higher frequency motions closer to the viewer are solved at higher resolutions and vice versa. The new simulator better utilizes the computing power, producing visually plausible results with realistic fine-scale details in a more efficient way. It is particularly suitable for large scenes with the viewer inside the fluid domain. Also, as high-frequency fluid motions are distinguished from low-frequency motions in the simulation, the numerical dissipation is effectively reduced.