Mridul Aanjaneya

About Me

I am an Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science at Rutgers University, and a member of the Computational Biomedicine Imaging and Modeling Center (CBIM). I joined the department in 2017 after completing my doctoral studies in Computer Science from Stanford University in 2013, under the supervision of Ronald Fedkiw, followed by postdoctoral studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where I was advised by Eftychios Sifakis. I finished my undergraduate studies in Computer Science and Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur in 2008. I feel fortunate to be a recipient of the Ralph E. Powe Junior Faculty Enhancement Award 2019, sponsored by Oak Ridge Associated Universities (ORAU), and the NSF CAREER Award 2023.

I am interested in the areas of computer graphics, scientific computing, programming languages and robotics. Specifically, I develop numerical methods in computational physics that can benefit from the compute power available on modern workstations, by leveraging accelerations both at the algorithmic and systems level. Recently, we have started applying these techniques for learning unknown physical parameters for motion planning and control in robotics, and for designing correctly-rounded implementations of elementary functions for new floating-point variants. My long term goal is to enable the design of next generation algorithms that can facilitate interdisciplinary collaboration with researchers in engineering and medicine for understanding phenomena that are intractable by current means. Outside of work, I enjoy running, rock climbing, hiking, watching movies, and playing piano.

At Rutgers, I direct the Laboratory for Interactive Virtual Environments (LIVE). If you are a prospective graduate student interested in joining our lab, please apply to the Ph.D. program in Computer Science at Rutgers University, and mention my name in your application. If you would like to apply for a postdoc position, please email me your CV directly.

Symposium on Computer Animation (SCA) 2023

Together with Chenfanfu Jiang, I co-chaired the 22nd ACM SIGGRAPH/Eurographics Symposium on Computer Animation, that was held in-person at UCLA from August 4-6, 2023. Fully accepted papers were published in the journal Proceedings of the ACM in Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques (PACMCGIT). Congratulations to the winners of the Best Paper Awards, Sebastian Starke for winning the SCA Doctoral Dissertation Award, and Kui Wu for winning the SCA Early Career Researcher Award!

Publications

Learning Differentiable Tensegrity Dynamics using Graph Neural Networks Nelson Chen, Kun Wang, William R. Johnson III, Rebecca Kramer-Bottiglio, Kostas Bekris and Mridul Aanjaneya Proceedings of Machine Learning Research, (CoRL proceedings), (2024)
A Closest Point Method for PDEs on Manifolds with Interior Boundary Conditions for Geometry Processing Nathan King, Haozhe Su, Mridul Aanjaneya, Steven Ruuth and Christopher Batty ACM Transcations on Graphics, (to be presented at SIGGRAPH 2025), 1-26, (2024)
Spectral Reordering for Faster Elasticity Simulations Alon Flor and Mridul Aanjaneya The Visual Computer, (CGI proceedings), 40, 5067-5077, (2024)
Maximum Consensus Floating Point Solutions for Infeasible Low-dimensional Linear Programs with Convex Hull as the Intermediate Representation Mridul Aanjaneya and Santosh Nagarakatte Proceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages, (PLDI proceedings), 8, 197:1-25, (2024)
Real-time Height-field Simulation of Sand and Water Mixtures Haozhe Su, Siyu Zhang, Zherong Pan, Mridul Aanjaneya, Xifeng Gao and Kui Wu Proceedings of SIGGRAPH Asia, (Conference Track), (2023)
A Generalized Constitutive Model for Versatile MPM Simulation and Inverse Learning with Differentiable Physics Haozhe Su, Xuan Li, Tao Xue, Chenfanfu Jiang and Mridul Aanjaneya (Joint first authors) Proceedings of the ACM in Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques,* (SCA proceedings), 6, 3, 49:1-20, (2023)
Real2Sim2Real Transfer for Control of Cable-driven Robots via a Differentiable Physics Engine Kun Wang, William R. Johnson III, Shiyang Lu, Xiaonan Huang, Joran Booth, Rebecca Kramer-Bottiglio, Mridul Aanjaneya and Kostas Bekris IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, (IROS proceedings), (2023)
An Interactive Framework for Visually Realistic 3D Motion Synthesis using Evolutionarily-trained Spiking Neural Networks Ioannis Polykretis, Aditi Patil, Mridul Aanjaneya* and Konstantinos Michmizos* (Joint supervising authors) Proceedings of the ACM in Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques,* (I3D proceedings), 6, 1, 12:1-19, (2023)
Bioinspired Dynamic Control of Amphibious Articulated Creatures with Spiking Neural Networks Ioannis Polykretis, Mridul Aanjaneya and Konstantinos Michmizos Graphics Interface, (GI proceedings), 10, 1-11, (2023)
Fast Polynomial Evaluation for Correctly Rounded Elementary Functions using the RLIBM Approach Mridul Aanjaneya and Santosh Nagarakatte Code Generation and Optimization, (CGO proceedings), 95-107, (2023)
Progressive Polynomial Approximations for Fast Correctly Rounded Math Libraries Mridul Aanjaneya, Jay P. Lim and Santosh Nagarakatte Programming Language Design and Implementation, (PLDI proceedings), 552-565, (2022)
Giga Graph Cities: Their Buckets, Buildings, Waves, and Fragments James Abello, Haoyang Zhang, Daniel Nakhimovich, Chengguizi Han and Mridul Aanjaneya IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications, 42, 3, 53-64, (2022)
An Efficient B-Spline Lagrangian/Eulerian Method for Compressible Flow, Shock Waves, and Fracturing Solids Yadi Cao, Yunuo Chen, Minchen Li, Yin Yang, Xinxin Zhang, Mridul Aanjaneya and Chenfanfu Jiang ACM Transactions on Graphics, (presented at SIGGRAPH), 41, 4, 1-14, (2022)
Model Identification and Control of a Low-cost Mobile Robot with Omnidirectional Wheels using Differentiable Physics Edgar Granados, Abdeslam Boularias, Kostas Bekris and Mridul Aanjaneya IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, (ICRA proceedings), (2022)
A Recurrent Differentiable Engine for Tensegrity Robots Kun Wang, Mridul Aanjaneya and Kostas Bekris RSS Workshop on Closing the Reality Gap in Sim2Real Transfer for Robotics, (2022)
A Recurrent Differentiable Engine for Modeling Tensegrity Robots Trainable with Low-Frequency Data Kun Wang, Mridul Aanjaneya and Kostas Bekris IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, (ICRA proceedings), (2022)
A-ULMPM: An Adaptively Updated Lagrangian Material Point Method for Efficient Physics Simulation without Numerical Fracture Haozhe Su, Tao Xue, Chengguizi Han and Mridul Aanjaneya (Joint first authors) Computer Graphics Forum,* (Eurographics proceedings), 41, 2, 1-17, (2022)
Interactive Simulation of Disease Contagion in Dynamic Crowds Alon Flor, Chengguizi Han, Tao Xue* and Mridul Aanjaneya (Joint first authors) Motion, Interaction, and Games,* (MIG proceedings), 17, 1-11, (2021)
A Lagrangian Particle-based Formulation for Coupled Simulation of Fracture and Diffusion in Thin Membranes Chengguizi Han, Tao Xue and Mridul Aanjaneya (Joint first authors) Computer Graphics Forum,* (Pacific Graphics proceedings), 40, 7, 97-108, (2021)
Sim2Sim Evaluation of a Novel Data-Efficient Differentiable Physics Engine for Tensegrity Robots Kun Wang, Mridul Aanjaneya and Kostas Bekris IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, (IROS proceedings), (2021)
A Unified Second-Order Accurate in Time MPM Formulation for Simulating Viscoelastic Liquids with Phase Change Haozhe Su, Tao Xue, Chengguizi Han, Chenfanfu Jiang and Mridul Aanjaneya (Joint first authors) ACM Transactions on Graphics,* (SIGGRAPH proceedings), 40, 4, 119:1-18, (2021) SIGGRAPH Technical Papers Video Trailer
Graph Cities: Their Buildings, Waves, and Fragments James Abello, Daniel Nakhimovich, Chengguizi Han and Mridul Aanjaneya 4th International Workshop on Big Data Visual Exploration and Analytics, (BigVis), 4:1-8, (2021) Best Paper Award
An Approach to Generate Correctly-Rounded Math Libraries for New Floating-Point Variants Jay Lim, Mridul Aanjaneya, John Gustafson and Santosh Nagarakatte Proceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages, (POPL proceedings), 5, 29:1-30, (2021)
On a Generalized Energy Conservation/Dissipation Time Finite Element Method for Hamiltonian Mechanics Tao Xue, Yazhou Wang, Mridul Aanjaneya, Kumar K. Tamma and Guoliang Qin Computer Methods in Applied Mechanics and Engineering, 373, 113509, (2021)
A Novel Discretization and Numerical Solver for Non-Fourier Diffusion Tao Xue, Haozhe Su, Chengguizi Han, Chenfanfu Jiang and Mridul Aanjaneya (Joint first authors) ACM Transactions on Graphics,* (SIGGRAPH Asia proceedings), 39, 6, 178:1-14, (2020)
IQ-MPM: An Interface Quadrature Material Point Method for Non-sticky Strongly Two-Way Coupled Nonlinear Solids and Fluids Yu Fang, Ziyin Qu, Minchen Li, Xinxin Zhang, Yixin Zhu, Mridul Aanjaneya and Chenfanfu Jiang (Equal contributions) ACM Transactions on Graphics,* (SIGGRAPH proceedings), 39, 4, 51:1-17, (2020) SIGGRAPH Technical Papers Video Trailer
Constraint Bubbles and Affine Regions: Reduced Fluid Models for Efficient Immersed Bubbles and Flexible Spatial Coarsening Ryan Goldade, Mridul Aanjaneya and Christopher Batty ACM Transactions on Graphics, (SIGGRAPH proceedings), 39, 4, 43:1-15, (2020) SIGGRAPH Technical Papers Video Trailer
A First Principles Approach for Data-Efficient System Identification of Spring-Rod Systems via Differentiable Physics Engines Kun Wang, Mridul Aanjaneya and Kostas Bekris Proceedings of Machine Learning Research, (2nd Annual Conference on Learning for Dynamics and Control), 120:1-15, (2020)
An Adaptive Variational Finite Difference Framework for Efficient Symmetric Octree Viscosity Ryan Goldade, Yipeng Wang, Mridul Aanjaneya and Christopher Batty ACM Transactions on Graphics, (SIGGRAPH proceedings), 38, 4, 94:1-14, (2019) SIGGRAPH Technical Papers Video Trailer
An Efficient Geometric Multigrid Solver for Viscous Liquids Mridul Aanjaneya, Chengguizi Han, Ryan Goldade and Christopher Batty (Lead and supervising author) Proceedings of the ACM in Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques, (SCA proceedings), 2, 2, 14:1-21, (2019)
Dexterous Manipulation and Control with Volumetric Muscles Seunghwan Lee, Ri Yu, Jungnam Park, Mridul Aanjaneya, Eftychios Sifakis and Jehee Lee ACM Transactions on Graphics, (SIGGRAPH proceedings), 37, 4, 57:1-13, (2018)
An Efficient Solver for Two-way Coupling Rigid Bodies with Incompressible Flow Mridul Aanjaneya Computer Graphics Forum, (SCA proceedings), 37, 8, 59-68, (2018)
Power Diagrams and Sparse Paged Grids for High Resolution Adaptive Liquids Mridul Aanjaneya, Ming Gao, Haixiang Liu, Christopher Batty and Eftychios Sifakis (Joint first authors) ACM Transactions on Graphics,* (SIGGRAPH proceedings), 36, 4, 140:1-12, (2017)
Volumetric Muscle Controller Seunghwan Lee, Nathan Mitchell, Mridul Aanjaneya, Eftychios Sifakis and Jehee Lee Symposium on Computer Animation (SCA proceedings), 32:1-2, (2017)
A scalable Schur-complement fluids solver for heterogeneous compute platforms Haixiang Liu, Nathan Mitchell, Mridul Aanjaneya and Eftychios Sifakis ACM Transactions on Graphics, (SIGGRAPH Asia proceedings), 35, 6, 201:1-12 (2016) Inside Front Cover Image
Towards Positivity Preservation for Monolithic Two-way Solid-Fluid Coupling Saket Patkar, Mridul Aanjaneya, Wenlong Lu, Michael Lentine and Ronald Fedkiw Journal of Computational Physics, 312, 82-114 (2016)
Simulating Phase-Change Phenomena Using Gradient Augmented Level Set Approach C. R. Lakshman Anumolu, Mridul Aanjaneya, Eftychios Sifakis and Mario F. Trujillo ILASS Americas 28th Annual Conference on Liquid Atomization and Spray Systems (2016)
Non-manifold Level Sets: A multivalued implicit surface representation with applications to self-collision processing Nathan Mitchell, Mridul Aanjaneya, Rajsekhar Setaluri and Eftychios Sifakis ACM Transactions on Graphics (SIGGRAPH Asia proceedings), 34, 6, 247:1-9 (2015) Back Cover Image
A comparative study of four fluid-solid coupling methods for applications in ground vehicle mobility Arman Pazouki, Hammad Mazhar, Mridul Aanjaneya, Paramsothy Jayakumar, Eftychios Sifakis and Dan Negrut ECCOMAS Thematic Conference on Multibody Dynamics (2015)
SPGrid: a sparse paged grid structure applied to adaptive smoke simulation Rajsekhar Setaluri, Mridul Aanjaneya, Sean Bauer and Eftychios Sifakis ACM Transactions on Graphics (SIGGRAPH Asia proceedings), 33, 6, 205:1-12 (2014)
Efficient Denting and Bending of Rigid Bodies Saket Patkar, Mridul Aanjaneya, Aric Bartle, Minjae Lee and Ronald Fedkiw Symposium on Computer Animation (SCA proceedings), 87-96, (2014)
A Monolithic Mass Tracking Formulation for Bubbles in Incompressible Flow Mridul Aanjaneya Ph. D. Thesis, Stanford University, May (2013)
A Hybrid Lagrangian-Eulerian Formulation for Bubble Generation and Dynamics Saket Patkar, Mridul Aanjaneya, Dmitriy Karpman and Ronald Fedkiw Symposium on Computer Animation (SCA proceedings), 105-114, (2013) Best Paper Award (honorable mention)
A Monolithic Mass Tracking Formulation for Bubbles in Incompressible Flow Mridul Aanjaneya, Saket Patkar and Ronald Fedkiw Journal of Computational Physics, 247, 17-61 (2013)
Method and Apparatus for Providing Perspective-based Content Placement Urban Velkavrh, Mridul Aanjaneya, Timo Pylvänäinen, Radek Grzeszczuk and Ramakrishna Vedantham US Patent 20130162644, Nokia Corporation, June (2013)
Diffuse reflection diameter and radius for convex-quadrilateralizable polygons Arindam Khan, S. P. Pal, Mridul Aanjaneya, Arijit Bishnu and S. C. Nandy Discrete Applied Mathematics, 161 (10-11), 1496-1505 (2013)
Metric Graph Reconstruction from Noisy Data Mridul Aanjaneya, Frédéric Chazal, Daniel Chen, Marc Glisse, Leonidas J. Guibas and Dmitriy Morozov International Journal of Computational Geometry & Applications, 22, 4, 305-325 (2012)
3D City Modeling from Street-Level Data for Augmented Reality Applications Timo Pylvänäinen, Jérôme Berclaz, Thommen Korah, Varsha Hedau, Mridul Aanjaneya and Radek Grzeszczuk International Conference on 3D Imaging, Modeling, Processing, Visualization & Transmission (3DIMPVT proceedings), 238-245 (2012)
Mass and Momentum Conservation for Fluid Simulation Michael Lentine, Mridul Aanjaneya and Ronald Fedkiw Symposium on Computer Animation (SCA proceedings), 91-100, (2011) Best Paper Award (honorable mention)
Metric Graph Reconstruction from Noisy Data Mridul Aanjaneya, Frédéric Chazal, Daniel Chen, Marc Glisse, Leonidas J. Guibas and Dmitriy Morozov Symposium on Computational Geometry (SoCG proceedings), 37-46 (2011)
Image Webs: Computing and Exploiting Connectivity in Image Collections Kyle Heath, Natasha Gelfand, Maks Ovsjanikov, Mridul Aanjaneya and Leonidas J. Guibas Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR proceedings), 3432-3439 (2010)
Tromino tilings of domino-deficient rectangles Mridul Aanjaneya Discrete Mathematics, 309, 4, 937-944 (2009)
Directly Visible Pairs and Illumination by Reflections in Orthogonal Polygons Mridul Aanjaneya, Arijit Bishnu and S. P. Pal European Workshop on Computational Geometry (EuroCG proceedings) (2008)
Triangulating the Real Projective Plane Mridul Aanjaneya and Monique Teillaud Mathematical Aspects in Computer and Information Sciences (MACIS proceedings) (2007)