Bringing Computer and Physics Closer

Physically based simulations are important for predicting the future states of the objects in consideration, and have been one of the major research topics in computer graphics. Applications include optical simulations for realistic image synthesis given a 3D scene, and rigid/fluid dynamics for computer animations. The need for the ultimate realism may sometimes ask for more efficient and accurate methods than those available in other fields. In addition, physically based optimizations are useful for designing and fabricating man-made objects given some desirable functionalities governed by physical laws. The ability to incorporate predictive simulations also allows us to build smarter robots that can optimize for their next movement based on the predictions. We introduce some of our work performed from this perspective. (paper)