Smoke Water Fire (2016)

Smoke Water Fire is a digital video of a virtual simulation of fluid flow. It is rendered in 360-3D format for viewing on a VR stereo head-mounted display. Its 7225 frames were rendered in HDR at 11520x11520 resolution over the course of 8 months in 2015 using Radiance, a synthetic lighting simulation software package. The simulation data is from a front-tracking vortex method of my own construction, was generated in mid-2007, and took two weeks to complete. Music is by by David Williams and Nick Thibault. The name, Smoke Water Fire, comes from the fact that the underlying dynamics of fluid flow are universal: the formulas give no priority or inclination toward smoke, water, or fire. Only with virtual simulations of flow can we strip away the normal visual context of a fluid and look at its essential motions, and only then can we begin to understand what is means to be fluid, dynamic, ever-changing. This work will be on display at the IEEE VR 2017 Conference in Los Angeles in April.
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