Interactive physics / Study 03
Soft systems
A small material study. Every point has a home and a little inertia. Disturb the grid and watch a simple physical rule become something almost tactile.
Paused
Move or drag to pull the points toward you. Tap or click to send a ripple through the grid. Tune its stiffness and damping. Motion starts paused when your device requests reduced motion.
A look under the surfaceSimple rules.
Simple rules.
Unexpected results.
Each point is attached to its original position by a virtual spring. Hooke’s law pulls it home; damping removes energy over time. Velocity is integrated in small time steps, so the same system can feel soft, bouncy, or almost rigid.
Hooke’s lawDamped oscillationNumerical integration
The idea in code / JavaScript
const acceleration = (home - position) * stiffness
velocity += acceleration * deltaTime
velocity *= Math.exp(-damping * deltaTime)
position += velocity * deltaTimeforce = −stiffness · displacement − damping · velocity