# DiffCloth: Differentiable Cloth Simulation with Dry Frictional Contact

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2106.05306 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.05306/

## Key facts

- Cited by 65 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 15 of its 98 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 9 Jun 2021.

## Builds on (most cited first, 15 of 15)

- [Adam: A Method for Stochastic Optimization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1412.6980/) (2014)
- [Proximal Policy Optimization Algorithms](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1707.06347/) (2017)
- [Learning to Simulate Complex Physics with Graph Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2002.09405/) (2020)
- [DiffTaichi: Differentiable Programming for Physical Simulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1910.00935/) (2019)
- [Learning Particle Dynamics for Manipulating Rigid Bodies, Deformable Objects, and Fluids](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1810.01566/) (2018)
- [Learning to Control PDEs with Differentiable Physics](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2001.07457/) (2020)
- [A Differentiable Physics Engine for Deep Learning in Robotics](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1611.01652/) (2016)
- [gradSim: Differentiable simulation for system identification and visuomotor control](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.02646/) (2021)
- [ChainQueen: A Real-Time Differentiable Physical Simulator for Soft Robotics](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1810.01054/) (2018)
- [Scalable Differentiable Physics for Learning and Control](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2007.02168/) (2020)
- [SPNets: Differentiable Fluid Dynamics for Deep Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1806.06094/) (2018)
- [DiffPD: Differentiable Projective Dynamics](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2101.05917/) (2021)
- [Codimensional Incremental Potential Contact](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2012.04457/) (2020)
- [P-Cloth: Interactive Complex Cloth Simulation on Multi-GPU Systems using Dynamic Matrix Assembly and Pipelined Implicit Integrators](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2008.00409/) (2020)
- [Learning to Collaborate from Simulation for Robot-Assisted Dressing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1909.06682/) (2019)

## Built on by (most cited first, 30 of 65)

- [HOOD: Hierarchical Graphs for Generalized Modelling of Clothing Dynamics](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.07242/) (2022)
- [PhysAvatar: Learning the Physics of Dressed 3D Avatars from Visual Observations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.04421/) (2024)
- [NeuPhysics: Editable Neural Geometry and Physics from Monocular Videos](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.12352/) (2022)
- [GIC: Gaussian-Informed Continuum for Physical Property Identification and Simulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.14927/) (2024)
- [DiffAvatar: Simulation-Ready Garment Optimization with Differentiable Simulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.12194/) (2023)
- [DiffuseBot: Breeding Soft Robots With Physics-Augmented Generative Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.17053/) (2023)
- [State of the Art in Dense Monocular Non-Rigid 3D Reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.15664/) (2022)
- [LLM-as-a-Verifier: A General-Purpose Verification Framework](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.05391/) (2026)
- [ClothesNet: An Information-Rich 3D Garment Model Repository with Simulated Clothes Environment](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.09987/) (2023)
- [SAM-RL: Sensing-Aware Model-Based Reinforcement Learning via Differentiable Physics-Based Simulation and Rendering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.15185/) (2022)
- [Atlas3D: Physically Constrained Self-Supporting Text-to-3D for Simulation and Fabrication](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.18515/) (2024)
- [Stabilizing Reinforcement Learning in Differentiable Multiphysics Simulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.12089/) (2024)
- [Dress-1-to-3: Single Image to Simulation-Ready 3D Outfit with Diffusion Prior and Differentiable Physics](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.03449/) (2025)
- [Dressing Avatars: Deep Photorealistic Appearance for Physically Simulated Clothing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2206.15470/) (2022)
- [DiffMimic: Efficient Motion Mimicking with Differentiable Physics](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.03274/) (2023)
- [ManiFoundation Model for General-Purpose Robotic Manipulation of Contact Synthesis with Arbitrary Objects and Robots](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.06964/) (2024)
- [NeuralFluid: Neural Fluidic System Design and Control with Differentiable Simulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.14903/) (2024)
- [Fine-grained differentiable physics: a yarn-level model for fabrics](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2202.00504/) (2022)
- [SoftMAC: Differentiable Soft Body Simulation with Forecast-based Contact Model and Two-way Coupling with Articulated Rigid Bodies and Clothes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.03297/) (2023)
- [SimAvatar: Simulation-Ready Avatars with Layered Hair and Clothing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.09545/) (2024)
- [MASIV: Toward Material-Agnostic System Identification from Videos](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.01112/) (2025)
- [Differentiable Hybrid Traffic Simulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.08046/) (2022)
- [Physics-guided Shape-from-Template: Monocular Video Perception through Neural Surrogate Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.12796/) (2023)
- [PICA: Physics-Integrated Clothed Avatar](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.05324/) (2024)
- [Neural Garment Dynamics via Manifold-Aware Transformers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.06101/) (2024)
- [MPMAvatar: Learning 3D Gaussian Avatars with Accurate and Robust Physics-Based Dynamics](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.01619/) (2025)
- [Differentiable Physics Simulations with Contacts: Do They Have Correct Gradients w.r.t. Position, Velocity and Control?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2207.05060/) (2022)
- [Learning Anchor Transformations for 3D Garment Animation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.00761/) (2023)
- [NeuralClothSim: Neural Deformation Fields Meet the Thin Shell Theory](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.12970/) (2023)
- [Jade: A Differentiable Physics Engine for Articulated Rigid Bodies with Intersection-Free Frictional Contact](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.04710/) (2023)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Cloth simulation has wide applications in computer animation, garment design, and robot-assisted dressing. This work presents a differentiable cloth simulator whose additional gradient information facilitates cloth-related applications. Our differentiable simulator extends a state-of-the-art cloth simulator based on Projective Dynamics (PD) and with dry frictional contact. We draw inspiration from previous work to propose a fast and novel method for deriving gradients in PD-based cloth simulation with dry frictional contact. Furthermore, we conduct a comprehensive analysis and evaluation of the usefulness of gradients in contact-rich cloth simulation. Finally, we demonstrate the efficacy of our simulator in a number of downstream applications, including system identification, trajectory optimization for assisted dressing, closed-loop control, inverse design, and real-to-sim transfer. We observe a substantial speedup obtained from using our gradient information in solving most of these applications.