Particle Simulator

This project implements Verlet integration to simulate particle physics in C, using GLFW for real-time visualization. This is a buildable project via Make which generate a binary executable that can run the different scripts.

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Table of Contents

• Overview
• Features
• Requirements
• Installation
• Project Structure
• Usage
• Misc

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Overview

Verlet integration is a numerical method used to simulate the motion of particles with great stability and minimal computational cost, even when forces become complex. This project leverages the Verlet algorithm to simulate realistic particle physics, including collision detection and response, in a 2D space. GLFW provides real-time rendering, enabling visual feedback and parameter adjustments like gravity, particle interaction, and potential fields.

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Features

• Stable Verlet Integration: Accurately simulates particle movement with position-based integration.
• GLFW Visualization: Real-time rendering of particles in a 2D environment.
• Collision Handling: Particle-to-particle and boundary collision detection with response.
• Performance Efficient: Handles a large number of particles smoothly.

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Project Structure

Verlet-Particles/
├── bin/                # Compiled binaries
├── include/            # Header files
├── libs/               # External dependencies (e.g. GLFW, GLUT, Unity added as submodules)
├── scripts/            # Example scripts (e.g., gas_simulation.c, impulse_simulation.c)
├── src/                # Core simulation logic
├── tests/              # Unit tests
├── assets/             # Assets for visualization (e.g., GIFs, images)
├── Makefile            # Build rules
└── README.md           # Documentation

Requirements

To build and run the project, ensure the following are installed:

• C compiler (e.g., GCC or Clang) - add it to your system environment PATH
• Make for building the project

Ubuntu Installation:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install -y build-essential \
  libgl1-mesa-dev mesa-common-dev \
  libx11-dev xorg-dev \
  libxrandr-dev libxinerama-dev libxcursor-dev libxi-dev \
  libglfw3-dev

Windows Installation:

Install MSYS2 and use its package manager:

pacman -S mingw-w64-x86_64-glfw mingw-w64-x86_64-gcc

How to use project

After installing necessary stuff, it is very straight forward to use my project.

1. Clone the repository recursively:

git clone --recursive https://github.com/davidomanovic/particle-simulator.git

2. Build the project with make simply by writing in terminal (inside the project repo):

make

3. Run the simulator binary either by double clicking the executable inside the generated bin/ folder, or simply in terminal

./bin/particle_simulator.exe

Contributions

Contributions are welcome! Fork this repository, make your changes, and submit a pull request.

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License.