The simulation of high viscoelasticity poses important computational challenges. One is the difficulty to robustly measure strain and its derivatives in a medium without permanent structure. Another is the high stiffness of the governing differential equations. Solutions that tackle these challenges exist, but they are computationally slow. We propose a constraint-based model of viscoelasticity that enables efficient simulation of highly viscous and viscoelastic phenomena. Our model reformulates, in a constraint-based fashion, a constitutive model of viscoelasticity for polymeric fluids, which defines simple governing equations for a conformation tensor. The model can represent a diverse palette of materials, spanning elastoplastic, highly viscous, and inviscid liquid behaviors. In addition, we have designed a constrained dynamics solver that extends the position-based dynamics method to handle efficiently both position-based and velocity-based constraints. We show results that range from interactive simulation of viscoelastic effects to large-scale simulation of high viscosity with competitive performance.

@Article\{BGAO17,
  author       = "Barreiro, Héctor and García-Fernández, Ignacio and Alduán, Iván and Otaduy, Miguel A.",
  title        = "Conformation Constraints for Efficient Viscoelastic Fluid Simulation",
  journal      = "ACM Trans. on Graphics (Proc. of ACM SIGGRAPH Asia)",
  number       = "6",
  volume       = "36",
  pages        = "221.1--221.11",
  year         = "2017",
  url          = "http://gmrv.es/Publications/2017/BGAO17"
}