Cloth

The cloth feature of the NVIDIA PhysX SDK allows for simulation of items made from cloth, such as flags, clothing, etc. This is accomplished by providing a mesh that is used to define a set of particles (vertices). The topology of the mesh allows the SDK to construct constraints between the particles that mimic how cloth can bend and stretch. In addition, cloth particles can be pinned to shapes and global positions, such as attaching a flag to a pole.

There are two main types of cloth constraints:

• Stretching - applied to maintain distance between each particle that is connected by an edge in a cloth mesh. The strength of this constraint is assigned using the SDK; specifying a small stretching constraint factor allows the particles to move apart more easily and gives the impression of more stretchy cloth, such as lycra. Specifying a larger constraint factor makes the cloth stiffer, like denim.
• Bending - applied to maintain the angle along an edge in a cloth mesh, either by constraining the angle directly or by constraining the distance between the pair of particles on either side of the edge (see the diagram below). An example of a material that would use a low bending constraint for simulation is cotton, while a substance such as paper or cardboard would use a high bending constraint.