We recommend exploring the official CMake documentation to beginner CMake users.
The Physics Based Animation Toolkit (PBAT) is a (mostly templated) cross-platform C++20 library of algorithms and data structures commonly used in computer graphics research on physically-based simulation in dimensions 1,2,3
. For most use cases, we recommend using our library via its Python interface, enabling seamless integration into Python's ecosystem of powerful scientific computing packages.
- Finite Element Method (FEM) meshes and operators
- Dimensions
1,2,3
- Lagrange shape functions of order
1,2,3
- Line, triangle, quadrilateral, tetrahedron and hexahedron elements
- Dimensions
- Hyper elastic material models
- Saint-Venant Kirchhoff
- Stable Neo-Hookean
- Polynomial quadrature rules
- Simplices in dimensions
1,2,3
- Gauss-Legendre quadrature
- Simplices in dimensions
- Spatial query acceleration data structures
- Bounding volume hierarchy for triangles (2D+3D) and tetrahedra (3D)
- Nearest neighbours
- Overlapping primitive pairs
- Point containment
- Bounding volume hierarchy for triangles (2D+3D) and tetrahedra (3D)
- Seamless profiling integration via Tracy
See vcpkg.json
for a versioned list of our dependencies, available via vcpkg (use of vcpkg is not mandatory, as long as dependencies have compatible versions and are discoverable by CMake's find_package
mechanism).
Option | Values | Default | Description |
---|---|---|---|
PBAT_BUILD_PYTHON_BINDINGS |
ON,OFF |
OFF |
Enable PhysicsBasedAnimationToolkit_PhysicsBasedAnimationToolkit Python bindings. Generates the CMake target PhysicsBasedAnimationToolkit_Python , an extension module for Python, built by this project. |
PBAT_BUILD_TESTS |
ON,OFF |
OFF |
Enable PhysicsBasedAnimationToolkit_PhysicsBasedAnimationToolkit unit tests. Generates the CMake target executable PhysicsBasedAnimationToolkit_Tests , built by this project. |
PBAT_ENABLE_PROFILER |
ON,OFF |
OFF |
Enable Tracy instrumentation profiling in built PhysicsBasedAnimationToolkit_PhysicsBasedAnimationToolkit . |
PBAT_PROFILE_ON_DEMAND |
ON,OFF |
OFF |
Activate Tracy's on-demand profiling when PBAT_ENABLE_PROFILER is ON . |
PBAT_USE_INTEL_MKL |
ON,OFF |
OFF |
Link to user-provided Intel MKL installation via CMake's find_package . |
PBAT_USE_SUITESPARSE |
ON,OFF |
OFF |
Link to user-provided SuiteSparse installation via CMake's find_package . |
PBAT_BUILD_SHARED_LIBS |
ON,OFF |
OFF |
Build project's library targets as shared/dynamic. |
Our project provides configuration presets that capture typical use configurations. Refer to the CMake presets documentation for more information.
Build transparently across platforms using the cmake build CLI.
CMake build targets:
Target | Description |
---|---|
PhysicsBasedAnimationToolkit_PhysicsBasedAnimationToolkit |
The PBA Toolkit library. |
PhysicsBasedAnimationToolkit_Tests |
The test executable, using doctest. |
PhysicsBasedAnimationToolkit_Python |
PBAT's Python extension module, using pybind11. |
From command line:
cd path/to/PhysicsBasedAnimationToolkit
cmake -S . -B build # -D<option>=<value> ...
cmake --install build --config Release
Alternatively, if vcpkg
is installed and VCPKG_ROOT=path/to/vcpkg
is set as an environment variable, you can select one of our available presets, for example cmake --preset=default
and then install.
We recommend downloading the Tracy profiler server to analyze execution of PBAT algorithms, available as precompiled executable. PBAT currently supports Tracy 0.10.
Take a look at the unit tests, found in the library's source (.cpp
) files.
To download and install from PyPI, run in command line:
pip install pbatoolkit
For a local installation, which builds from source, our Python bindings build relies on Scikit-build-core, which relies on CMake's install
mechanism. As such, you can configure the installation as you typically would when using the CMake CLI directly, by now passing the corresponding CMake arguments in the pip
's config-settings
parameter, or via the SKBUILD_*
environment variables. See our pyinstall workflow for working examples of building from source on Linux, MacOS and Windows. Then, assuming that external dependencies are found via CMake's find_package
, you can build and install our Python package pbatoolkit
locally and get the most up to date features. Consider using a Python virtual environment for this step.
As an example, using vcpkg
for external dependencies with VCPKG_ROOT
set, run in command line:
pip install . --config-settings=cmake.args="--preset=pip-local" -v
For parallel builds on Unix systems, you can add the build.tool-args=-j<# threads>
to the config-settings
parameter, where <# threads>
is the number of compilation jobs to run simultaneously. On Windows, using MSBuild
, you may specify build.tool-args=/p:CL_MPCount=<# threads>
instead. This assumes that parallel builds were enabled, meaning /MP
may need to be appended to CMAKE_CXX_FLAGS
through cmake.args
. Otherwise, CMAKE_BUILD_PARALLEL_LEVEL=<# threads>
may be usable, again through the cmake.args
parameter of config-settings
.
Verify pbatoolkit
's contents in Python shell:
import pbatoolkit as pbat
help(pbat.fem)
help(pbat.geometry)
help(pbat.profiling)
help(pbat.math.linalg)
To profile relevant calls to pbatoolkit
functions/methods, connect to python.exe
in the Tracy
profiler server GUI.
All calls to pbat will be profiled on a per-frame basis in the Tracy profiler server GUI.
Use method
profile
ofpbatoolkit.profiling.Profiler
to profile code external to PBAT, allowing for an integrated profiling experience while using various scientific computing packages.def expensive_external_computation(): # Some expensive computation profiler.profile("My expensive external computation", expensive_external_computation)
Head over to our hands-on tutorials section to learn more about physics based animation in both theory and practice!
Below, we show a few examples of what can be done in just a few lines of code using pbatoolkit
and Python. Code can be found here.
A smooth (harmonic) function is constructed on Entei, required to evaluate to 1
on its paws, and 0
at the top of its tail, using piece-wise linear (left) and quadratic (right) shape functions. Its isolines are displayed as black curves.
Approximate geodesic distances are computed from the top center vertex of Metagross by diffusing heat from it (left), and recovering a function whose gradient matches the normalized heat's negative gradient. Its isolines are displayed as black curves.
Fine details of Godzilla's skin are smoothed out by diffusing x,y,z
coordinates in time.
Linear (left) and quadratic (right) shape functions are compared on a hyper elastic simulation of the beam model, whose left side is fixed. Quadratic shape functions result in visually smoother and softer bending.
The hyper elastic beam's representative deformation modes, i.e. its low frequency eigen vectors, are animated as time continuous signals.
Computation details are gathered when using pbatoolkit
and consulted in the Tracy profiling server GUI.
A .clang-format
description file is provided in the repository root which should be used to enforce a uniform coding style throughout the code base using the clang-format tool. Recent versions of Visual Studio Code and Visual Studio should come bundled with a clang-format
installation. On Unix-like systems, clang-format
can be installed using your favorite package manager.