Interesting paper, called “Scalable Fluid Simulation using Anisotropic Turbulence Particles” has appeared at homepage of Dr. Markuss Gross, from ETH Zurich.

As far as we know, same solver is used in APEX Turbulence module.

Abstract:

It is usually difficult to resolve the fine details of turbulent flows, especially when targeting real-time applications. We present a novel, scalable turbulence method that uses a realistic energy model and an efficient particle representation that allows for the accurate and robust simulation of small-scale detail. We compute transport of turbulent energy using a complete two-equation k–e model with accurate production terms that allows us to capture anisotropic turbulence effects, which integrate smoothly into the base flow. We only require a very low grid resolution to resolve the underlying base flow.

As we offload complexity from the fluid solver to the particle system, we can control the detail of the simulation easily by adjusting the number of particles, without changing the large scale behavior. In addition, no computations are wasted on areas that are not visible. We demonstrate that due to the design of our algorithm it is highly suitable for massively parallel architectures, and is able to generate detailed turbulent

In addition, this paper comes with nice video demonstration (92 mb). It is worth to watch.

Thanks to AquaGeneral for the link.

Now, when Subscription Advantage Pack for 3ds Max 2011 and 3ds Max Design 2011 was released, we can verify that it includes updated version of PhysX plug-in, designated as 2.40.0808.2140, avaialble in 32- and 64-bit variants and based on PhysX SDK 2.8.3.17.

Update: How to achieve quality simulation with PhysX plug-in for 3ds Max

Update #2: New PhysX plug-n v. 2.60 released

Unfortunately, APEX Clothing tools are in not included in this version of the plug-in.

Note: To use this plug-in with RayFire Tool, you need to update RayFire to version 1.51.02

For those of you, who still can’t decide if new PhysX plug-in is worth the update, here are full Release Notes we took from documentation:

v2.40.0625, 2010-June-25

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