Fluid Dynamics Library: FDL Overview

FDL is an open source, cross platform software that is designed at numerically solving the Navier-Stokes equations for incompressible flow in order to simulate fluids with consumer-grade computer hardware. The development process was guided by Fluid Simulation for Computer Graphics by Robert Bridson.

Robert Bridson's approach uses a preconditioned conjugate gradient algorithm on a 3D finite difference grid using a special matrix data structure that allows for pretty fast convergence combined with a relatively small memory footprint.

Features

Offline rendering tools
The software can output files in pbrt format so that they may be rendered using the PBRT renderer. There are scripts (bash and perl) provided to run a render job using pbrt.
Real time rendering visualization
Currently we're using Visualization Library to provide support infrastructure for visualizing the domain of fluid within the simulation.
XML configuration
The solver parameters and fluid source terms can be setup using an external XML file.
2D PNG output
We provide an export option for rendering to PNGs. The rendering itself is simply a density accumulation of the domain taken on the z-axis.
Templated solver and grid classes
FDL leverages C++ templates to allow for single or double precision linear algebra.

Development

The project is currently hosted at fluidlib.org. The project is also relies upon Redmine to facilitate organized software development. The Redmine application can be reached here: http://project.fluidlib.org/projects/fdl

Though the project is designed to be cross platform, the active developers are using Linux and Mac OSX.

This project is currently being developed by Caleb Johnston and Jerry Gagelman. We are interested in having more contributors. If you are interested in helping out, please contact us! We'd love some help.

Software Dependencies

This software would have been much more difficult (and time consuming) without the help of the following libraries.

CMake
Boost (Threads, Program Options, uBLAS, Date-Time, System)
OpenGL & GLUT
TinyXML (included in source tree)
libpng

In the future, we may be adding compiler options to remove these dependencies.

Download

You can download the software directly using git. If you have git installed, use:

git clone http://fluidlib.org/fdl.git

Roadmap

Unfortunately we can't devote all of our time to FDL. But these are some features we plan for future development:

Wavelet turbulence
Rigid-fluid interaction
Liquid simulation using level sets
MacCormack advection
Fire simulation
Variable density solves
Divergence control for smoke
A parallelized version running in OpenCL

Open Source Software License

FDL - Fluid Dynamics Library
Copyright (C) 2011 by Caleb Johnston, Jerry Gagelman

This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
(at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
along with this program.  If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.