Yarn-level simulation of woven cloth

TLDR

The large‑scale mechanical behavior of woven cloth depends on yarn properties, weave pattern, and frictional contact, yet simulating garments at realistic yarn densities with standard elastic rod models and yarn‑yarn contact handling is intractable. This paper presents an efficient yarn‑level simulation method for woven cloth. The method discretizes interlaced yarns using yarn crossings and sliding, implicitly modeling yarn‑yarn contact and avoiding explicit contact handling. With internal yarn force models, inter‑yarn friction, and a massively parallel solver, the approach simulates garments with hundreds of thousands of yarn crossings at practical frame rates on a desktop, capturing both large‑scale and fine‑scale effects.

Abstract

The large-scale mechanical behavior of woven cloth is determined by the mechanical properties of the yarns, the weave pattern, and frictional contact between yarns. Using standard simulation methods for elastic rod models and yarn-yarn contact handling, the simulation of woven garments at realistic yarn densities is deemed intractable. This paper introduces an efficient solution for simulating woven cloth at the yarn level. Central to our solution is a novel discretization of interlaced yarns based on yarn crossings and yarn sliding, which allows modeling yarn-yarn contact implicitly, avoiding contact handling at yarn crossings altogether. Combined with models for internal yarn forces and inter-yarn frictional contact, as well as a massively parallel solver, we are able to simulate garments with hundreds of thousands of yarn crossings at practical frame-rates on a desktop machine, showing combinations of large-scale and fine-scale effects induced by yarn-level mechanics.