Simulation and control of breaking waves using an external force model

This paper presents an extension of a paper initially presented at the conference VRIPHYS 2015 1. It describes a new method for intuitively managing swells and breaking waves within fluid solvers, based on an external force controlled with only a few parameters. Generating waves with conventional approaches requires pushing particles with oscillating planes. As the resulting waves are only handled by the fluid simulator, they cannot be controlled easily; breaking waves are also difficult to produce in practice. Instead, we propose to use a new wave model that physically describes the behavior of "wave forces" with parameters that explicitly affect wave speed, height, and width. We also propose to map each parameter with user-defined curves. As shown in the results, these forces applied to a smoothed-particle hydrodynamics (SPH) system provide a wide range of effects, such as swells with varying speed and height, breaking waves, curved wave fronts, overtaking waves, and curved wave paths. We show how it is possible to handle crossing waves with our model. Each effect demonstrated in our results only requires a few easy-to-implement operations. Graphical abstractDisplay Omitted HighlightsA new wave model corresponding to an external force applied to fluid particles, based on physical observations; it enables a user to control choppy, linear, or breaking waves, with ease of implementation.2D vertical control that can modulate the wave profile, speed, height, and width during its propagation.2D horizontal control that enables curved wave fronts and wave paths on the water surface.