PolyHoop: Soft particle and tissue dynamics with topological transitions

We present PolyHoop, a lightweight standalone C++ implementation of a mechanical model to simulate the dynamics of soft particles and cellular tissues in two dimensions. With only few geometrical and physical parameters, PolyHoop is capable of simulating a wide range of particulate soft matter systems: from biological cells and tissues to vesicles, bubbles, foams, emulsions, and other amorphous materials. The soft particles or cells are represented by continuously remodeling, non-convex, high-resolution polygons that can undergo growth, division, fusion, aggregation, and separation. With PolyHoop, a tissue or foam consisting of a million cells with high spatial resolution can be simulated on conventional laptop computers.

本研究提出PolyHoop——一款轻量级独立C++实现的力学模型，用于二维软颗粒与细胞组织的动力学模拟。仅需少量几何与物理参数，PolyHoop即可模拟诸多颗粒态软物质系统：涵盖生物细胞与组织、囊泡、气泡、泡沫、乳液及其他无定形材料。该模型将软颗粒或细胞表征为可持续重构的非凸高分辨率多边形，此类多边形可发生生长、分裂、融合、聚集与分离过程。借助PolyHoop，在常规笔记本电脑上即可模拟包含百万个高空间分辨率细胞的组织或泡沫体系。