# DiffWind: Physics-Informed Differentiable Modeling of Wind-Driven Object Dynamics

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.09668 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.09668/

## Key facts

- Cited by 3 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 39 of its 60 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 10 Mar 2026.

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 39)

- [3D Gaussian Splatting for Real-Time Radiance Field Rendering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.04079/) (2023)
- [ShapeNet: An Information-Rich 3D Model Repository](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1512.03012/) (2015)
- [Stable Video Diffusion: Scaling Latent Video Diffusion Models to Large Datasets](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.15127/) (2023)
- [CogVideoX: Text-to-Video Diffusion Models with An Expert Transformer](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.06072/) (2024)
- [D-NeRF: Neural Radiance Fields for Dynamic Scenes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2011.13961/) (2020)
- [4D Gaussian Splatting for Real-Time Dynamic Scene Rendering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.08528/) (2023)
- [Grounded SAM: Assembling Open-World Models for Diverse Visual Tasks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.14159/) (2024)
- [Deformable 3D Gaussians for High-Fidelity Monocular Dynamic Scene Reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.13101/) (2023)
- [Dynamic 3D Gaussians: Tracking by Persistent Dynamic View Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.09713/) (2023)
- [VideoCrafter2: Overcoming Data Limitations for High-Quality Video Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.09047/) (2024)
- [DynamiCrafter: Animating Open-domain Images with Video Diffusion Priors](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.12190/) (2023)
- [PhysGaussian: Physics-Integrated 3D Gaussians for Generative Dynamics](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.12198/) (2023)
- [Neural Radiance Flow for 4D View Synthesis and Video Processing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2012.09790/) (2020)
- [DiffTaichi: Differentiable Programming for Physical Simulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1910.00935/) (2019)
- [Video Depth Anything: Consistent Depth Estimation for Super-Long Videos](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2501.12375/) (2025)
- [PhysDreamer: Physics-Based Interaction with 3D Objects via Video Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.13026/) (2024)
- [4D-Rotor Gaussian Splatting: Towards Efficient Novel View Synthesis for Dynamic Scenes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.03307/) (2024)
- [PAC-NeRF: Physics Augmented Continuum Neural Radiance Fields for Geometry-Agnostic System Identification](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.05512/) (2023)
- [Kaolin: A PyTorch Library for Accelerating 3D Deep Learning Research](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1911.05063/) (2019)
- [Reconstruction and Simulation of Elastic Objects with Spring-Mass 3D Gaussians](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.09434/) (2024)
- [High-Quality Entity Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.05776/) (2022)
- [OmniSeg3D: Omniversal 3D Segmentation via Hierarchical Contrastive Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.11666/) (2023)
- [Detector-Free Structure from Motion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.15669/) (2023)
- [DiffCloth: Differentiable Cloth Simulation with Dry Frictional Contact](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.05306/) (2021)
- [A Compact Dynamic 3D Gaussian Representation for Real-Time Dynamic View Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.12897/) (2023)
- [FreeTimeGS: Free Gaussian Primitives at Anytime and Anywhere for Dynamic Scene Reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.05348/) (2025)
- [Physics Informed Neural Fields for Smoke Reconstruction with Sparse Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2206.06577/) (2022)
- [GIC: Gaussian-Informed Continuum for Physical Property Identification and Simulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.14927/) (2024)
- [PhysFlow: Unleashing the Potential of Multi-modal Foundation Models and Video Diffusion for 4D Dynamic Physical Scene Simulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.14423/) (2024)
- [Neural Material Adaptor for Visual Grounding of Intrinsic Dynamics](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.08257/) (2024)

## Built on by (most cited first, 3 of 3)

- [PhysSkin: Real-Time and Generalizable Physics-Based Animation via Self-Supervised Neural Skinning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.23194/) (2026)
- [MeGAS: Thermomechanical Dynamic Gaussian Splatting for Thermophysical Scene Editing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.23455/) (2026)
- [KnockGS:interaction-Grounded Calibrationof Physical Gaussian Representations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.27365/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Modeling wind-driven object dynamics from video observations is highly challenging due to the invisibility and spatio-temporal variability of wind, as well as the complex deformations of objects. We present DiffWind, a physics-informed differentiable framework that unifies wind-object interaction modeling, video-based reconstruction, and forward simulation. Specifically, we represent wind as a grid-based physical field and objects as particle systems derived from 3D Gaussian Splatting, with their interaction modeled by the Material Point Method (MPM). To recover wind-driven object dynamics, we introduce a reconstruction framework that jointly optimizes the spatio-temporal wind force field and object motion through differentiable rendering and simulation. To ensure physical validity, we incorporate the Lattice Boltzmann Method (LBM) as a physics-informed constraint, enforcing compliance with fluid dynamics laws. Beyond reconstruction, our method naturally supports forward simulation under novel wind conditions and enables new applications such as wind retargeting. We further introduce WD-Objects, a dataset of synthetic and real-world wind-driven scenes. Extensive experiments demonstrate that our method significantly outperforms prior dynamic scene modeling approaches in both reconstruction accuracy and simulation fidelity, opening a new avenue for video-based wind-object interaction modeling.