Heating and melting deformable models
Demetri Terzopoulos, John C. Platt, Kurt Fleischer · The Journal of Visualization and Computer Animation · 1991
Abstract We develop physically‐based graphics models of non‐rigid objects capable of heat conduction, thermoelasticity, melting and fluid‐like behaviour in the molten state. These deformable models feature non‐rigid dynamics governed by Lagrangian equations of motion and conductive heat transfer governed by the heat equation for non‐homogeneous, non‐isotropic media. In its solid state, the discretized model is an assembly of hexahedral finite elements in which thermoelastic units interconnect particles situated in a lattice. The stiffness of a thermoelastic unit decreases as its temperature increases, and the unit fuses when its temperature exceeds the melting point. The molten state of the model involves a molecular dynamics simulation in which ‘fluid’ particles that have broken free from the lattice interact through long‐range attraction forces and short‐range repulsion forces. We present a physically‐based animation of a thermoelastic model in a simulated physical world populated by hot constraint surfaces.