Uploaded July 2019 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago
Rayleigh-Bénard convection occurs for example in a hot pan filled with oil or in the Earths mantle, whenever a vertical temperature gradient is present and the parameters like viscosity, thermal conductivity and the thermal expansion coefficient are just right. At the bottom the fluid is heated, expands, becomes less dense and thus rises. When it reaches the cold top plate, it becomes more dense again and sinks to the bottom. In 3D this results in convection cells.
Performing such 3D simulations in real time has not been possible before the rise of GPUs. Traditional LBM codes running on CPUs are approximately 100x slower - far away from real time.
FluidX3D is a real time 3D fluid simulation based using the lattice Boltzmann method. It is written in OpenCL C (GPU code) and optimized to the physical limit (video memory bandwith, ~520GB/s).
All demonstrations but the last one are simulated and visualized in real time on a Nvidia Titan Xp. Graphics are done with the OpenCL C version of Line3D, the fastest graphics engine ever written for primitive shapes like lines, dots and circles. It can handle up to 2 billion lines per second.
The temperature extension is done with an additional D3Q7 sub-lattice and Guo forcing.
Hardware Setup:
CPU: Intel Core i7-8700K @ 4.5GHz all core
GPU: Nvidia Titan Xp
RAM: 2x8GB Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4 3200MHz CL16
Mainboard: ASUS ROG STRIX Z370-I GAMING
SSD 1: Samsung 970 PRO 512GB
SSD 2: Samsung 860 EVO 1TB
CPU Cooler: Cooltek LP53
PSU: Corsair SF600
Housing: Fractal Design Node 202
Timestamps:
0:02 256x256x128
0:28 256x256x64
0:58 256x256x32
1:29 256x256x16
1:55 256x256x256
More information at projectphysx.de
Music: "Atlantis", audionautix.com/Music/Atlantis.mp3
Rayleigh-Bénard convection occurs for example in a hot pan filled with oil or in the Earths mantle, whenever a vertical temperature gradient is present and the parameters like viscosity, thermal conductivity and the thermal expansion coefficient are just right. At the bottom the fluid is heated, expands, becomes less dense and thus rises. When it reaches the cold top plate, it becomes more dense again and sinks to the bottom. In 3D this results in convection cells.
Performing such 3D simulations in real time has not been possible before the rise of GPUs. Traditional LBM codes running on CPUs are approximately 100x slower - far away from real time.
FluidX3D is a real time 3D fluid simulation based using the lattice Boltzmann method. It is written in OpenCL C (GPU code) and optimized to the physical limit (video memory bandwith, ~520GB/s).
All demonstrations but the last one are simulated and visualized in real time on a Nvidia Titan Xp. Graphics are done with the OpenCL C version of Line3D, the fastest graphics engine ever written for primitive shapes like lines, dots and circles. It can handle up to 2 billion lines per second.
The temperature extension is done with an additional D3Q7 sub-lattice and Guo forcing.
Hardware Setup:
CPU: Intel Core i7-8700K @ 4.5GHz all core
GPU: Nvidia Titan Xp
RAM: 2x8GB Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4 3200MHz CL16
Mainboard: ASUS ROG STRIX Z370-I GAMING
SSD 1: Samsung 970 PRO 512GB
SSD 2: Samsung 860 EVO 1TB
CPU Cooler: Cooltek LP53
PSU: Corsair SF600
Housing: Fractal Design Node 202
Timestamps:
0:02 256x256x128
0:28 256x256x64
0:58 256x256x32
1:29 256x256x16
1:55 256x256x256
More information at projectphysx.de
Music: "Atlantis", audionautix.com/Music/Atlantis.mp3
![PhysX3D [GRAVITY SIMULATION] Planetary Movement through Space](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/llhXEzWEWxI/mqdefault.jpg "PhysX3D [GRAVITY SIMULATION] Planetary Movement through Space
This is how the planets and moons move relative to the solar system barycenter. In a similar way the whole solar system moves around the center of the milky way.
More information at: http://www.projectphysx.de
Music: Chris Zabriskie - Cylinder Three")
![FluidX3D [FLUID SIMULATION] 65536 Particles in Real Time](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/nMyFEnO3j_w/mqdefault.jpg "FluidX3D [FLUID SIMULATION] 65536 Particles in Real Time
FluidX3D is a GPU-accelerated real time 3D fluid simulation based on the lattice Boltzmann method.
Ive added some upgrades, namely the one-step-pull algorithm (OS-Pull) for a combined streaming-and-collide step which cuts VRAM access in half.
Particles are also calculated on the GPU. They dont impact performance much (less than 1%), since 65536 is a small number compared to 256x128x128 LBM nodes. Furthermore, if only the particle positions have to be sent over PCI-e to the CPU for graphics instead of the entire velocity field, it doubles the calculation steps per second, because then the GPU does not have to wait idle until the slow data transfer is done.
For more information about FluidX3D and my other projects, visit
http://www.projectphysx.de
Music: CMA - Youre Not Alone")
![FluidX3D [FLUID SIMULATION] Rocket Nozzle Simulation](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/nenqfD6nNGc/mqdefault.jpg "FluidX3D [FLUID SIMULATION] Rocket Nozzle Simulation
FluidX3D is a GPU-accelerated real time 3D fluid simulation based on the lattice Boltzmann method.
Ive added arbitrary boundaries. This enables setting arbitrarily shaped walls inside the simulation box and observing the fluid flow around them.
The simulations in this video are sped up by 2x because the simulation box is quite large at 128x128x256. Keep in mind that the simulations run on a Laptop from the year 2015.
For more information about FluidX3D and my other projects, visit
http://www.projectphysx.de
Music: Soundtrack from CERN - Processing LHC Data")
