Enable syntax highlighting for CUDA files in Eclipse:

• Window -> Preferences -> in C/C++ -> File Types -> New
• Enter “*.cu” and select “C++ Source File”
• Repeat and enter “*.cuh” and select “C++ Header File”

Prevent Eclipse from complaining about global and others: In your code, either include cuda_runtime.h or add the following:

 #ifdef __CDT_PARSER__
 #define __global__
 #define __device__
 #define __shared__
 #endif

See http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=90943&view=findpost&p=1249657 for a similar trick related to kernel invocations, but note that its use is discouraged.

Here are several useful references that I have found relating to the use of the Material Point Method in modeling flexible objects.

All papers linked with pdf that were freely available online, papers without pdf’s link to places where it can be purchased.

UPDATE: The definitions of R3 and R4 were missing, code has been updated

#####UPDATE: Added a function to get a quaternion from and angle and an axis

Often times I find myself needing to use quaternions to store rotations in my code. They are compact and easy to use, the math however is not always intuitive.

UPDATE: For a modern opengl version using GLM please see this newer post

UPDATE: Some definitions were mission from code, quaternion and vector classes now included with code

When i’m writing a dynamics code I usually need to visually debug my simulations to make sure everything is initialized properly, looks correct, etc. I’ve found that using OpenGL along with GLUT provides a lightweight solution that I can implement quickly. Usually when I implement a basic rendering code I have a static camera, which in the grand scheme of things is not very useful. So after googling OpenGL quaternion cameras I came up with the following solution. To use this code a basic quaternion class is included. This will be covered in a later post.