Interactive simulation for easy decision-making in fluid dynamics

Wang, Mengchen; F'erey, Nicolas; Magoules, Fr'ed'eric; Bourdot, Patrick

A conventional study of fluid simulation involves different stages including conception, simulation, visualization, and analysis tasks. It is, therefore, necessary to switch between different software and interactive contexts which implies costly data manipulation and increases the time needed for decision making. Our interactive simulation approach was designed to shorten this loop, allowing users to visualize and steer a simulation in progress without waiting for the end of the simulation. The methodology allows the users to control, start, pause, or stop a simulation in progress, to change global physical parameters, to interact with its 3D environment by editing boundary conditions such as walls or obstacles. This approach is made possible by using a methodology such as the Lattice Boltzmann Method (LBM) to achieve interactive time while remaining physically relevant. In this work, we present our platform dedicated to interactive fluid simulation based on LBM. The contribution of our interactive simulation approach to decision making will be evaluated in a study based on a simple but realistic use case.