A Control Simulation of Multiple Bubbles for Representing Desired Shapes

• Published in: Computer animation and virtual worlds Vol. 36; no. 3
• Main Authors: Nishio, Naruo, Sato, Syuhei, Sakurai, Kaisei, Nakamoto, Keiko
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Hoboken, USA John Wiley & Sons, Inc 01.05.2025; Wiley Subscription Services, Inc
• Subjects: Bubbles; Control methods; Control simulation; polygonizer; shape control; Simulation; soap bubble simulation; Soaps; sphere approximation; Surface tension; target‐driven control
• DOI: 10.1002/cav.70037
• ISSN: 1546-4261

ABSTRACT This paper presents a control simulation that represents user‐desired shapes using multiple connected soap bubbles. A previous method attempted to control a single soap bubble using external forces. However, due to the strong surface tension making spherical babbles, elongated shapes could not be achieved. To address this issue, this paper aims to develop a control simulation that achieves diverse soap bubble shapes by dividing the target shape into connected soap bubbles. In our approach, we first generate an initial soap bubble configuration composed of multiple bubbles to represent the target shape. Then, by applying external forces to each bubble, we simulate the bubbles to maintain their shape along the target form. We use an implicit‐function‐like representation for the connected soap bubbles and develop a new polygonizer that makes shapes including the internal faces of bubbles. By demonstrating examples with various target shapes such as objects and text, we show the effectiveness of our proposed control method. Our controlled results for various target shapes. Target shapes are shown as insets at the bottom left of each result.