COL865: Physics-Based Animation
Final project

The final part of the course is an open-ended project where you will implement some sophisticated simulation algorithm(s) of your choice, perhaps by adding to one of the assignments you have done so far, or by implementing something else that we have discussed in the course. Try to choose a project that will be about 50% more work than one of the course assignments. You will be graded on both your validation of technical correctness and on the visual quality of your results.

Project proposal

Write a short summary of your intended project and the steps you will take to complete it. Aim for about 1 page in ACM proceedings (sigconf) format. Your proposal must include the following sections:

• Introduction: Define the problem you want to solve and/or the phenomenon you want to simulate.
• Proposed method(s): Provide a brief technical description of the algorithms you plan to use, including citations to relevant papers, and explain why they are appropriate for your specific chosen problem. Discuss any significant difficulties you expect to encounter in implementing them.
• Plan: Provide a timeline for the tasks you will carry out in order to complete your project by the end of the semester.
• Expected results: Describe what you plan to achieve as the final results. You should include both complicated visually appealing demos, and simple validation tests to verify numerical accuracy, stability, or other desired properties.

The proposal should be submitted on Moodle by Friday, 12 October.

Final submission

Final results of the project are due on Monday, 26 November. You will be expected to submit videos of your results, your code, and a short report. The report should be similar to the project proposal but longer, i.e. 2–3 pages in ACM sigconf format, and contain the following sections:

• Introduction: Define the problem addressed in the project. Discuss the relevant physical phenomena, and which ones your code handles and which ones you have chosen to neglect.
• Method: Provide a technical description of your implementation, including citations to relevant papers, mathematical formulae, explanations of the algorithms used, and implementation choices.
• Results: Show quantitative results of validation tests, and representative images from all examples. If the validation tests you include differ from the ones in your proposal, include some justification of why this is so.
• Limitations: Discuss the limitations of your implementation.