Visual simulation of chemical gardens

Xiaoming Wei, Feng Qiu, Wei Li, Suzanne Yoakum-Stover, Arie E. Kaufman

Abstract: We present a visualization and modeling system for the creation of chemical gardens. A chemical garden is a collection of plant-like structures formed when placing a soluble metal salt in an aqueous solution of sodium silicate. An accurate simulation of the chemical reaction of the metal salt and the physical behavior of the surrounding sodium silicate solution flow are complicated and time-consuming. Instead, in our system we use and propose a simplified 3D cellular automata (CA) approach to model the growing process of a chemical garden and its interaction with the solution flow. The input of our system is the shape and types of various soluble metal salts. Our program supports the visualization of the growth and formation of the chemical garden. The interactive rendering result on a texture mapping hardware also helps the user in observing and creating a desirable chemical garden.