Webart / 005 · Fluid studies

Space water drop

A small ocean, held together by its surface.

Disturb the stillness

Tap the drop to strike it. Drag to orbit; scroll or pinch to zoom. A punch excites several surface modes at once.

Auto-kick when energy is low

Energy includes surface deformation and motion, so turning points do not trigger false kicks. The minimum interval prevents rapid repeated kicks. Settle disables the drive and automatic kicks.

Display resolution

About the simulation

A reduced-order capillary model: eight damped Rayleigh surface modes (orders 2–6), with numerical volume correction. Surface tension restores the spherical shape; damping removes energy. The drive continuously adds energy at your chosen frequency. A camera following the drop removes its translational motion.

The frequencies use Rayleigh’s mode ratios, with a 0.72 Hz reference fundamental. Strong deformations are bounded; breakup, splashes, evaporation, and freezing in a vacuum are not modeled. This is an idealized microgravity drop.

WebGPU ray tracing through a deforming implicit surface: Fresnel reflection, two-surface water refraction (IOR 1.333), absorption, and up to four internal bounces. Adjustable white scattering and soft sunlight give the drop a luminous body. Camera auto-rotation is measured in degrees per second; zero stops it, and negative values reverse it. Pause stops automatic motion while manual orbit remains available. The surrounding star field and distant lights are procedural.

Sound follows the eight surface modes: deformation and motion change the level of each tone, making stronger and finer waves louder and brighter. It is an artistic sonification, not sound travelling through a vacuum. Microgravity drop oscillations · NASA

Render a video

Frame

Resolution

Minutes

Frame rate

Container

Video quality

Include synthesized sonification

Sound is included even with live playback muted. The volume setting also controls the recording.

Save directly to disk

Renders every frame from the current shape and view, without the interface. A 60 fps video keeps all 60 frames per second even when rendering takes longer. Sound renders offline too. Keep this tab visible and the device awake; hiding it waits without skipping video time. One-hour 4K exports need direct disk saving and sufficient free space. The simulation resumes from its original position afterward.