st-tech / ppf-contact-solver
- ััะตะดะฐ, 27 ะผะฐั 2026โฏะณ. ะฒ 00:00:04
A contact solver for physics-based simulations involving ๐ shells, ๐ชต solids and ๐ชข rods.
A contact solver for physics-based simulations involving ๐ shells, ๐ชต solids and ๐ชข rods. All made by ZOZO, Inc., the largest fashion e-commerce company in Japan.
๐ค We highly respect that readers expect to hear the author's original voice and tone, which we work to retain throughout. Our use of LLMs is clarified in (Markdown).
๐จ Simulate remotely from our Blender add-on (screenshots taken on macOS; you can also run locally if you have a modern NVIDIA GPU on Windows or Linux)
๐ Or double click start.bat (Windows) or run a Docker command (Linux/Windows) to get it running
๐ Click the URL and explore our examples
โ ๏ธ Built for offline uses; not real time. Some examples may run at an interactive rate.
The main branch is undergoing frequent updates and will deviate from the paper.
To retain consistency with the paper, we have created a new branch sigasia-2024.
ghcr.io/st-tech/ppf-contact-solver-compiled-sigasia-2024:latest of this branch.Whether you plan to use the Blender add-on or the JupyterLab interface, the solver engine itself must first be deployed. The steps below apply to both.
โ ๏ธ Do not runwarmup.pylocally. If you do, you are very likely to hit failures and find it difficult to cleanup.
For Windows 10/11 users, a self-contained executable (~320MB) is available. No Python, Docker, or CUDA Toolkit installation is needed. All should simply work out of the box (Video).
๐ค If you are cautious, you can review the build workflow to verify safety yourself. We try to maximize transparency; we never build locally and upload.
start.batJupyterLab frontend will auto-start. You should be able to access it at http://localhost:8080.
Install a NVIDIA driver (Link) on your host system and follow the instructions below specific to the operating system to get a Docker running:
| ๐ง Linux | ๐ช Windows |
|---|---|
Install the Docker engine from here (Link). Also, install the NVIDIA Container Toolkit (Link). Just to make sure that the Container Toolkit is loaded, run sudo service docker restart. |
Install the Docker Desktop (Link). You may need to log out or reboot after the installation. After logging back in, launch Docker Desktop to ensure that Docker is running. |
Next, run the following command to start the container. If no edits are needed, just copy and paste:
$MY_WEB_PORT = 8080 # JupyterLab port on your side
$MY_BLENDER_PORT = 9090 # Solver port for the Blender add-on
$IMAGE_NAME = "ghcr.io/st-tech/ppf-contact-solver-compiled:latest"
docker run --rm -it `
--name ppf-contact-solver `
--gpus all `
-p ${MY_WEB_PORT}:${MY_WEB_PORT} `
-p ${MY_BLENDER_PORT}:${MY_BLENDER_PORT} `
-e WEB_PORT=${MY_WEB_PORT} `
$IMAGE_NAME # Image size ~1GBMY_WEB_PORT=8080 # JupyterLab port on your side
MY_BLENDER_PORT=9090 # Solver port for the Blender add-on
IMAGE_NAME=ghcr.io/st-tech/ppf-contact-solver-compiled:latest
docker run --rm -it \
--name ppf-contact-solver \
--gpus all \
-p ${MY_WEB_PORT}:${MY_WEB_PORT} \
-p ${MY_BLENDER_PORT}:${MY_BLENDER_PORT} \
-e WEB_PORT=${MY_WEB_PORT} \
$IMAGE_NAME # Image size ~1GBThe image download shall be started. Our image is hosted on GitHub Container Registry (~1GB). JupyterLab will then auto-start. Eventually you should be seeing:
==== JupyterLab Launched! ๐ ====
http://localhost:8080
Press Ctrl+C to shutdown
================================
Next, open your browser and navigate to http://localhost:8080. The port 8080 can change if you change the MY_WEB_PORT variable.
Keep your terminal window open.
Now you are ready to go! ๐
To shut down the container, just press Ctrl+C in the terminal.
The container will be removed and all traces will be cleaned up. ๐งน
If you wish to keep the container running in the background, replace
--rmwith-d. To shutdown the container and remove it, rundocker stop ppf-contact-solver && docker rm ppf-contact-solver.
If you wish to build the docker image from scratch, please refer to the cleaner installation guide (Markdown).
We provide two frontends: a Blender add-on and a JupyterLab interface. The Blender add-on lets you build scenes and run simulations entirely within Blender's UI, while JupyterLab lets you script everything in Python from your browser. Both communicate with the same solver engine, so pick whichever you like.
In both cases, you can interact with the simulator on your laptop while the actual simulation runs on a remote headless server over the internet. This means that you don't have to own NVIDIA hardware, but can rent it at vast.ai for less than $0.5 per hour. That said, if you do have a modern NVIDIA GPU on a local Windows or Linux machine, you can also run the solver directly on it. Actually, this (Video) was recorded on a vast.ai instance. The experience is good! ๐
Our Blender add-on aims to offer a familiar UI that best feels like everything works locally, but under the hood, it communicates with a remote server where all simulations run, and then the results are fetched back.
This provides a unique experience where users can leverage powerful remote GPUs while working seamlessly in their local Blender environment. Remarkably, our Blender add-on works even on macOS systems ๐, unlike other CUDA-based physics simulator add-ons that require local NVIDIA GPUs. More importantly, you can work on a laptop without worrying about draining the battery fast. ๐
Follow this page How to Install to learn how to install the add-on. For a thorough walk through workflow, we refer to our documentation below:
Here are some highlights:
We maintain a full docs site with workflow guides and recorded walkthroughs for the add-on:
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| Workflow documentation page. (Link) | Video tutorials page. (Link) |
Here are a couple of screenshots of the add-on running inside Blender:
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| Kite scene set up in Blender. (full-size) | Zebra scene set up in Blender. (full-size) |
We expose all of the add-on's tools through an MCP server, so any LLM (Claude, Codex, etc.) can drive the whole pipeline from a natural language prompt. Scene building, parameter tweaks, and running the simulation all happen without UI clicks. Here are two examples:
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| Codex (left) driving Blender (right) through the add-on's MCP server. | A prompt: drape a sheet over a sphere and make an animation video mp4 render 300 frames. |
You can also drive the entire pipeline from a Python script inside Blender's scripting editor. This is handy for procedural scene setup and batch variant generation. Below is a full example that drapes a sheet over a sphere:
import addon_utils
import importlib
import bpy
# Look up the add-on module under whichever extension repository Blender
# installed it into and grab the public solver API.
addon = next(m for m in addon_utils.modules() if m.__name__.endswith(".ppf_contact_solver"))
solver = importlib.import_module(f"{addon.__name__}.ops.api").solver
# Reset any prior state.
solver.clear()
# Create a sphere (the static collider) at the origin.
bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_ico_sphere_add(subdivisions=4, radius=0.5, location=(0, 0, 0))
bpy.context.object.name = "Sphere"
# Create a 2x2 sheet just above the sphere as a 64x64 grid.
bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_grid_add(x_subdivisions=64, y_subdivisions=64, size=2, location=(0, 0, 0.6))
sheet = bpy.context.object
sheet.name = "Sheet"
# Pin the two corners on the -x edge via a vertex group.
vg = sheet.vertex_groups.new(name="Corners")
corner_indices = [
i for i, v in enumerate(sheet.data.vertices)
if v.co.x < -0.99 and abs(abs(v.co.y) - 1.0) < 0.01
]
vg.add(corner_indices, 1.0, "REPLACE")
# Build solver groups.
cloth = solver.create_group("Cloth", type="SHELL")
cloth.add("Sheet")
cloth.param.enable_strain_limit = True
cloth.param.strain_limit = 0.05
cloth.param.bend = 1
ball = solver.create_group("Ball", type="STATIC")
ball.add("Sphere")
# Pin the two sheet corners.
cloth.create_pin("Sheet", "Corners")
# Scene parameters.
solver.param.frame_count = 100
solver.param.step_size = 0.01Here's how the script runs inside Blender (full-size):
For the full solver.* surface, see the Blender Python API guide.
Our frontend is accessible through a browser using our built-in JupyterLab interface. All is set up when you open it for the first time. Results can be interactively viewed through the browser and exported as needed. Our Python interface is designed with the following principles in mind:
.triangulate() and .tetrahedralize() calls to keep everything in-pipeline, allowing users to skip explicit mesh exports to 3D/CAD software.from frontend import App.Here's an example of draping five sheets over a sphere with two corners pinned. We have more examples in the examples directory. Please take a look! ๐
# import our frontend
from frontend import App
# make an app
app = App.create("drape")
# create a square mesh resolution 128 spanning the xz plane
V, F = app.mesh.square(res=128, ex=[1, 0, 0], ey=[0, 0, 1])
# add to the asset and name it "sheet"
app.asset.add.tri("sheet", V, F)
# create an icosphere mesh radius 0.5
V, F = app.mesh.icosphere(r=0.5, subdiv_count=4)
# add to the asset and name it "sphere"
app.asset.add.tri("sphere", V, F)
# create a scene
scene = app.scene.create()
# define gap between sheets
gap = 0.01
for i in range(5):
# add the sheet asset to the scene with an vertical offset
obj = scene.add("sheet").at(0, gap * i, 0)
# pick two corners
corner = obj.grab([1, 0, -1]) + obj.grab([-1, 0, -1])
# pin the corners
obj.pin(corner)
# set the strict limit on maximum strain to 5% per triangle
obj.param.set("strain-limit", 0.05)
# add a sphere mesh at a lower position with jitter and set it static collider
scene.add("sphere").at(0, -0.5 - gap, 0).jitter().pin()
# compile the scene and report stats
scene = scene.build().report()
# preview the initial scene, shows image left
scene.preview()
# create a new session with the compiled scene
session = app.session.create(scene)
# set session params
session.param.set("frames", 100).set("dt", 0.01)
# build this session
session = session.build()
# start the simulation and live-preview the results, shows image right
session.start().preview()
# also show streaming logs
session.stream()
# or interactively view the animation sequences
session.animate()
# export all simulated frames in (sequences of ply meshes + a video)
session.export.animation()Full API documentation is available on our GitHub Pages. The major APIs are documented using docstrings and compiled with Sphinx
We have also included jupyter-lsp to provide interactive linting assistance and display docstrings as you type. See this video (Video) for an example.
The behaviors can be changed through the settings.
A list of parameters used in param.set(key,value) is documented here: (Simulation Parameters) (Material Parameters).
โ ๏ธ Please note that our Python APIs are subject to breaking changes as this repository undergoes frequent iterations. If you need APIs to be fixed, please fork.
Logs for the simulation can also be queried through our Python APIs. Here's an example of how to get a list of recorded logs, fetch them, and compute the average.
# get a list of log names
logs = session.get.log.names()
print(logs)
assert "time-per-frame" in logs
assert "newton-steps" in logs
# get a list of time per video frame
msec_per_video = session.get.log.numbers("time-per-frame")
# compute the average time per video frame
print("avg per frame:", sum([n for _, n in msec_per_video]) / len(msec_per_video))
# get a list of newton steps
newton_steps = session.get.log.numbers("newton-steps")
# compute the average of consumed newton steps
print("avg newton steps:", sum([n for _, n in newton_steps]) / len(newton_steps))
# Last 8 lines. Omit for everything.
print("==== log stream ====")
for line in session.get.log.stdout(n_lines=8):
print(line)Below are some representatives.
vid_time refers to the video time in seconds and is recorded as float.
ms refers to the consumed simulation time in milliseconds recorded as int.
vid_frame is the video frame count recorded as int.
| Name | Description | Format |
|---|---|---|
| time-per-frame | Time per video frame | list[(vid_frame,ms)] |
| matrix-assembly | Matrix assembly time | list[(vid_time,ms)] |
| pcg-linsolve | Linear system solve time | list[(vid_time,ms)] |
| line-search | Line search time | list[(vid_time,ms)] |
| time-per-step | Time per step | list[(vid_time,ms)] |
| newton-steps | Newton iterations per step | list[(vid_time,count)] |
| num-contact | Contact count | list[(vid_time,count)] |
| max-sigma | Max stretch | list(vid_time,float) |
The full list of log names and their descriptions is documented here: (GitHub Pages).
Note that some entries have multiple records at the same video time. This occurs because the same operation is executed multiple times within a single step during the inner Newton's iterations. For example, the linear system solve is performed at each Newton's step, so if multiple Newton's steps are executed, multiple linear system solve times appear in the record at the same video time.
If you would like to retrieve the raw log stream, you can do so by
# Last 8 lines. Omit for everything.
for line in session.get.log.stdout(n_lines=8):
print(line)This will output something like:
* dt: 1.000e-03
* max_sigma: 1.045e+00
* avg_sigma: 1.030e+00
------ newton step 1 ------
====== contact_matrix_assembly ======
> dry_pass...0 msec
> rebuild...7 msec
> fillin_pass...0 msec
If you would like to read stderr, you can do so using session.get.stderr() (if it exists).
This returns list[str].
All the log files are updated in real-time and can be fetched right after the simulation starts; you don't have to wait until it finishes.
These scenes are all built with our add-on. The simulation itself runs on a remote solver, or directly on your local machine if you have a modern NVIDIA GPU on Windows or Linux.
You set the geometry, constraints, and parameters from Blender's UI, and the saved .blend carries everything the add-on needs.
| kite.blend (Video) | crumple.blend (Video) | puff.blend (Video) |
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| press.blend (Video) | zebra.blend (Video) | curtain.blend (Video) |
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The simulated portion (objects, groups, pins, and solver parameters) is generated by a script you drop into Blender's Scripting editor. Cameras, lighting, and any non-simulated props are still set up in Blender's UI. Each script is linked above its thumbnail.
| cards.py (Video) | five-twist.py (Video) | noodle.py (Video) | woven.py (Video) |
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All these examples run on our Python frontend through JupyterLab. Click any notebook to see how the scene is built, or click the video link to watch the result.
Below is a table summarizing the estimated costs for running our examples on a NVIDIA L4 instance g6.2xlarge at Amazon Web Services US regions (us-east-1 and us-east-2).
| Example | Cost | Time | #Frame | #Vert | #Face | #Tet | #Rod | Max Strain |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| trapped | $0.37 | 22.6m | 300 | 263K | 299K | 885K | N/A |
N/A |
| twist | $0.91 | 55m | 500 | 203K | 406K | N/A |
N/A |
N/A |
| stack | $0.60 | 36.2m | 120 | 166.7K | 327.7K | 8.8K | N/A |
5% |
| trampoline | $0.74 | 44.5m | 120 | 56.8K | 62.2K | 158.0K | N/A |
1% |
| needle | $0.31 | 18.4m | 120 | 86K | 168.9K | 8.8K | N/A |
5% |
| cards | $0.29 | 17.5m | 300 | 8.7K | 13.8K | 1.9K | N/A |
5% |
| domino | $0.12 | 4.3m | 250 | 0.5K | 0.8K | N/A |
N/A |
N/A |
| drape | $0.10 | 3.5m | 100 | 81.9K | 161.3K | N/A |
N/A |
5% |
| curtain | $0.33 | 19.6m | 300 | 64K | 124K | N/A |
N/A |
5% |
| friction | $0.17 | 10m | 700 | 1.1K | N/A |
1K | N/A |
N/A |
| hang | $0.12 | 7.5m | 200 | 16.3K | 32.2K | N/A |
N/A |
1% |
| belt | $0.19 | 11.4m | 200 | 12.3K | 23.3K | N/A |
N/A |
5% |
| codim | $0.36 | 21.6m | 240 | 122.7K | 90K | 474.1K | 1.3K | N/A |
| fishingknot | $0.38 | 22.5m | 830 | 19.6K | 36.9K | N/A |
N/A |
5% |
| fitting | $0.03 | 1.54m | 240 | 28.4K | 54.9K | N/A |
N/A |
10% |
| noodle | $0.14 | 8.45m | 240 | 116.2K | N/A |
N/A |
116.2K | N/A |
| ribbon | $0.23 | 13.9m | 480 | 34.9K | 52.9K | 8.8K | N/A |
5% |
| woven | $0.58 | 34.6m | 450 | 115.6K | N/A |
N/A |
115.4K | N/A |
| yarn | $0.01 | 0.24m | 120 | 28.5K | N/A |
N/A |
28.5K | N/A |
| roller | $0.03 | 2.08m | 240 | 21.4K | 22.2K | 61.0K | N/A |
N/A |
Large scale examples are run on a vast.ai instance with an RTX 4090. These examples are not included in GitHub Action tests since they can take days to finish.
| large-twist.ipynb (Video) | large-five-twist.ipynb (Video) | large-woven.ipynb (Video) |
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| Example | Commit | #Vert | #Face | #Rod | #Contact | #Frame | Time/Frame |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| large-twist | cbafbd2 | 3.2M | 6.4M | N/A |
56.7M | 2,000 | 46.4s |
| large-five-twist | 6ab6984 | 8.2M | 16.4M | N/A |
184.1M | 2,413 | 144.5s |
| large-woven | 4c07b83 | 2.7M | N/A |
2.7M | 8.9M | 946 | 436.8s |
๐ Large scale examples take a very long time, and it's easy to lose connection or close the browser. Our frontend lets you close and reopen it at your convenience. Just recover your session after you reconnect. Here's an example cell how to recover:
# In case you shutdown the server (or kernel) and still want
# to restart, do this.
# Do not run other cells used to create this scene.
# You can also recover this way if you closed the browser.
# Just directly run this in a new cell or in a new notebook.
from frontend import App
# recover the session
session = App.recover("app-name")
# resume if not currently running
if not App.busy():
session.resume()
# preview the current state
session.preview()
# stream the logs
session.stream()We implemented GitHub Actions that test all of our examples except for large scale ones, which take from days to weeks to finish. We perform explicit intersection checks at the end of each step, which raises an error if an intersection is detected. This ensures that all steps are confirmed to be penetration-free if tests pass. The runner types are described as follows:
The tested runner of this action is the Ubuntu NVIDIA GPU-Optimized Image for AI and HPC with an NVIDIA Tesla T4 (16 GB VRAM) with Driver version 570.133.20.
This is not a self-hosted runner, meaning that each time the runner launches, all environments are fresh. ๐ฑ
We use the GitHub-hosted runner, but the actual simulation runs on a g6e.2xlarge AWS instance.
Since we start with a fresh instance, the environment is clean every time.
We take advantage of the ability to deploy on the cloud; this action is performed in parallel, which reduces the total action time.
This action exercises our Blender add-on on free GitHub-hosted Linux and macOS runners in parallel. Blender 5.1.1 is installed from the official Blender Foundation mirror, the Rust solver is built in CPU-emulated mode (no CUDA required), and the add-on is installed as a Blender 5 extension. A headless test rig then runs the full scenario registry covering add-on UI flows.
We generate zipped action artifacts for each run. These artifacts include:
Please note that these artifacts will be deleted after a month.
We know that you can't judge the reliability of contact resolution by simply watching a single success video example. To ensure greater transparency, we implemented GitHub Actions to run many of our examples via automated GitHub Actions, not just once, but 10 times in a row for both Docker and Windows. This means that a single failure out of 10 tests is considered a failure of the entire test suite! Also, we apply small jitters to the position of objects in the scene, so at each run, the scene is slightly different.
Running our solver on the cloud has a few practical advantages:
Below, we describe how to deploy our solver on major cloud services. These instructions are up to date as of late 2024 and are subject to change.
โ ๏ธ For all the services below, don't forget to delete the instance after use, or you'll be charged for nothing. ๐ธ
ssh -L 8080:localhost:8080 root@<host> -p <port>, then open http://localhost:8080 in your browser.fr-par-2L4-1-24G or GPU-3070-SUbuntu Jammy GPU OS 12Deep Learning Base AMI with Single CUDA (Ubuntu 22.04)g6.2xlarge (Recommended)GPUs. We recommend the GPU type NVIDIA L4 because it's affordable and accessible, as it does not require a high quota. You may select T4 instead for testing purposes.Enable Virtual Workstation (NVIDIA GRID).g2-standard-8.Deep Learning VM with CUDA 12.4 M129 and set the disk size to 50GB.us-central1 (Iowa) and $1.00 per hour in asia-east1 (Taiwan).8080 is reserved by the OS image. Set $MY_WEB_PORT to 8888. When connecting via gcloud, use the following format: gcloud compute ssh --zone "xxxx" "instance-name" -- -L 8080:localhost:8888.Alongside our official Blender add-on, the following community add-ons are also available:
Our work still needs many improvements, and our documentation and tutorial videos are not very sophisticated. The author would greatly appreciate it if you made your own tutorial videos, write-ups, or blog posts about the solver, and posted them online on YouTube, your blog, social media, or anywhere else.
If you post about it on X.com, please consider using the #ZOZOContactSolver tag so the author and community users can find your work.
This project is released under the Apache License 2.0. In plain terms, you may use, modify, and redistribute the code in commercial products, including proprietary software, without paying royalties or open-sourcing your own code. You only need to preserve the license notice and the attribution required by the license.
If you build something on top of this solver, we would love to hear about it, but you are not obligated to disclose anything.
We appreciate your interest in opening pull requests, but we are not ready to accept external pull requests because doing so involves resolving copyright and licensing matters with ZOZO, Inc. For the time being, please open issues for bug reports under the terms described below. If you wish to extend the codebase, please fork the repository and work on it.
By submitting an Issue or suggestion to this repository, you agree that your contribution is provided under the terms of the Apache License, Version 2.0. Any bug reports or feature proposals you provide will be deemed to be licensed to us and the community on a royalty-free, unrestricted basis for the purpose of improving this software.
See CONTRIBUTING.md for details. Thank you!
We have opened GitHub Discussions as a place for questions, ideas, and conversations about the solver. Feel free to drop by to ask questions, share your work, or chat with the community.
This project is owned by ZOZO, Inc. and maintained by Ryoichi Ando.
For bug reports or feature requests, please open an issue on GitHub. For usage questions, GitHub Discussions is the best place to ask. Either route is the fastest way to reach the author and keeps the conversation searchable for other users.
If you would prefer to reach out privately, you can also email the author at ryoichi.ando@zozo.com.
Please refrain from attaching code patches or other materials that would be considered contributions to this project. Anything you do send is treated under the terms of CONTRIBUTING.md: by sending it you agree it is licensed to us and the community under the Apache License, Version 2.0 on a royalty-free, unrestricted basis.
If you used this project in a public piece of work, whether a paper, a production credit, or a personal project, the author would love to feature it here. A link to your article, project page, or website is all we need (rather than images or clips themselves, since hosting them here may run into licensing issues), and we will be happy to add it.
The author thanks ZOZO, Inc. for permitting the release of the code and the team members for assisting with the internal paperwork for this project. This repository is owned by ZOZO, Inc.