Controllable Complex Freezing Dynamics Simulation on Thin Films

Abstract

The freezing of thin films is a mesmerizing natural phenomenon, inspiring photographers to capture its beauty through their lenses and digital artists to recreate its allure using effects tools. In this paper, we present a novel method for physically simulating the intricate freezing dynamics on thin films. By accounting for the influence of phase and temperature changes on surface tension, our method reproduces Marangoni freezing and the "Snow-Globe Effect", characterized by swirling ice dendrites on the film. We introduce a novel Phase Map method on top of the state-of-the-art Moving Eulerian-Lagrangian Particles (MELP) meshless framework, enabling dendritic crystal simulation on mobile particles and offering precise control over freezing patterns. We demonstrate that our method is able to capture a wide range of dynamic freezing processes of soap bubbles and is stable for complex boundaries in our experiments.