Real-time haptic rendering of three-dimensional
fluid flow will improve the interactivity and realism of applications
ranging from video games to surgical simulators, but it
remains a challenging undertaking due to its high computational
cost. Humans are very familiar with the look and feel of real
fluids, so successful interactive simulations need to obey the
mathematical relationships of fluid dynamics with high spatial
resolution and fast temporal response. In this work we propose
an innovative GPU-based approach that enables real-time haptic
rendering of high-resolution 3D Navier-Stokes fluids. We show
that moving the vast majority of the computation to the GPU
allows for the simulation of touchable fluids at resolutions and
frame rates that are significantly higher than any other recent
real-time methods without a need for pre-computations. Based on
our proposed approach, we build a haptic and graphic rendering
system that allows users to interact with 3D virtual smoke in real
time through the Novint Falcon, a commercial haptic interface.