How it works

Aurora solves the incompressible Navier–Stokes equations every frame, entirely on the GPU, using Jos Stam's Stable Fluids method. Each step is a full-screen fragment-shader pass that writes into half-float textures:

1. Curlmeasure local rotation of the velocity field
2. Vorticity confinementpush energy back into small swirls lost to numerical diffusion
3. Divergencefind where fluid is being created or destroyed
4. Pressure ×NJacobi iterations solve the Poisson equation ∇²p = ∇·u
5. Projectionsubtract ∇p, so the flow becomes divergence-free
6. Advectionsemi-Lagrangian back-tracing moves velocity and dye
7. Displaytone mapping, normal-based shading, dithering

Press 2, 3 or 4 to see the raw velocity, pressure and vorticity fields the solver works with. Settings live in the URL, so Share gives a link that reproduces your setup. If the GPU struggles, dye resolution is lowered automatically.

Raw WebGL2 · under 1,000 lines of JavaScript and GLSL · no libraries · no build step.