OpenGL 4 Shading Language Cookbook - Third Edition

Using the compute shader for cloth simulation

The compute shader is well-suited for harnessing the GPU for physical simulation. Cloth simulation is a prime example. In this recipe, we'll implement a simple particle-spring-based cloth simulation using the compute shader. The following is an image of the simulation of a cloth hanging by five pins (you'll have to imagine it animating):

A common way to represent cloth is with a particle-spring lattice. The cloth is composed of a 2D grid of point masses, each connected to its eight neighboring masses with idealized springs. The following diagram represents one of the point masses (center) connected ...