HELP: Fluid Dynamics and Simulating with C++

[bboydocument]

Sorry I'm not sure where to post this as there is no explicit fluid dynamics forum - i just did a search and noticed majority of posts fell into the "mechanical engineering" forum for some reason. Sorry about that.

Today my professor has told the class that by next week we have to code in C++ and visually simulate the change in density in 3D when a piston moves through a cylinder of gas ie. creates a shock as speed increases past the speed of sound.

Look i know that's a very vague intro, but what I am trying to get at here is that I have no idea how to code in a graphics library..but more importantly how do i even implement a PDE into C++ and actually get something to show on the screen? i mean, like a fluid of some sort, piston moving through it, density changing as piston moves through it. This is such a crazy request by my professor, I envy all those students who are skilled in coding in openGL and know how to implement a PDE like the advection equation. All i have been taught in C++ is how to calculate the factorial of a number and output it to the console!

Please experts, guide me in the right direction! Where do I go to get help? When implementing PDEs into C++ what do I need to do?

 

[minger]

I could tell you a lot of CFD and the coding of it, but as far as post-processing and graphics libraries, I leave that to the experts...mostly plot3D actually.

If you're talking about the 1D advection problem, then that's rather simple. The code isn't too hard, and you can post-process in Excel.