Category: Collisions

Efficient Simulation of Knitted Cloth using Persistent Contacts

Gabriel Cirio, Jorge Lopez-Moreno, Miguel Otaduy

Knitted cloth is made of yarns that are stitched in regular patterns, and its macroscopic behavior is dictated by the contact interactions between such yarns. We propose an efficient representation of knitted cloth at the yarn level that treats yarn-yarn contacts as persistent, thereby avoiding expensive contact handling altogether. We introduce a compact representation of yarn geometry and kinematics, capturing the essential deformation modes of yarn loops and stitches with a minimum cost. Based on this representation, we design force models that reproduce the characteristic macroscopic behavior of knitted fabrics. We demonstrate the efficiency of our method on simulations with millions of degrees of freedom (hundreds of thousands of yarn loops), almost one order of magnitude faster than previous techniques.

Efficient Simulation of Knitted Cloth using Persistent Contacts

High-Resolution Brittle Fracture Simulation with Boundary Elements

David Hahn, Chris Wojtan

We present a method for simulating brittle fracture under the assumptions of quasi-static linear elastic fracture mechanics (LEFM). Using the boundary element method (BEM) and Lagrangian crack-fronts, we produce highly detailed fracture surfaces. The computational cost of the BEM is alleviated by using a low-resolution mesh and interpolating the resulting stress intensity factors when propagating the high-resolution crack-front. Our system produces physics-based fracture surfaces with high spatial and temporal resolution, taking spatial variation of material toughness and/or strength into account. It also allows for crack initiation to be handled separately from crack propagation, which is not only more reasonable from a physics perspective, but can also be used to control the simulation. Separating the resolution of the crack-front from the resolution of the computational mesh increases the efficiency and therefore the amount of visual detail on the resulting fracture surfaces. The BEM also allows us to re-use previously computed blocks of the system matrix.

High-Resolution Brittle Fracture Simulation with Boundary Elements

Simulating Rigid Body Fracture with Surface Meshes

Yufeng Zhu, Robert Bridson, Chen Greif

We present a new brittle fracture simulation method based on a boundary integral formulation of elasticity and recent explicit surface mesh evolution algorithms. Unlike prior physically-based simulations in graphics, this avoids the need for volumetric sampling and calculations, which aren’t reflected in the rendered output. We represent each quasi-rigid body by a closed triangle mesh of its boundary, on which we solve quasi-static linear elasticity via boundary integrals in response to boundary conditions and loads such as impact forces and gravity. A fracture condition based on maximum tensile stress is subsequently evaluated at mesh vertices, while crack initiation and propagation are formulated as an interface tracking procedure in material space. Existing explicit mesh tracking methods are modified to support evolving cracks directly in the triangle mesh representation, giving highly detailed fractures with sharp features, independent of any volumetric sampling (unlike tetrahedral mesh or level set approaches); the triangle mesh representation also allows simple integration into rigid body engines. We also give details on our well-conditioned integral equation treatment solved with a kernel-independent Fast Multipole Method for linear time summation. Various brittle fracture scenarios demonstrate the efficacy and robustness of our new method.

Simulating Rigid Body Fracture with Surface Meshes

Air Meshes for Robust Collision Handling

Matthias Mueller, Nuttapong Chentanez, Tae-Yong Kim, Miles Macklin

We propose a new method for both collision detection and collision response geared towards handling complex deformable objects in close contact. Our method does not miss collision events between time steps and solves the challenging problem of untangling automatically and robustly. It is conceptually simple and straight forward to parallelize due to the regularity of the algorithm. The main idea is to tessellate the air between objects once before the simulation and by considering one unilateral constraint per element that prevents its inversion during the simulation. If large relative rotations and translations are present in the simulation, an additional dynamic mesh optimization step is needed to prevent mesh locking. This step is fast in 2D and allows the simulation of arbitrary scenes. Because mesh optimization is expensive in 3D, however, the method is best suited for the subclass of 3D scenarios in which relative motions are limited. This subclass contains two important problems, namely the simulation of multi-layered clothing and tissue on animated characters.

Air Meshes for Robust Collision Handling

Subspace Condensation: Full Space Adaptivity for Subspace Deformations

Yun Teng, Mark Meyer, Tony DeRose, Theodore Kim

Subspace deformable body simulations can be very fast, but can behave unrealistically when behaviors outside the prescribed subspace, such as novel external collisions, are encountered. We address this limitation by presenting a fast, flexible new method that allows full space computation to be activated in the neighborhood of novel events while the rest of the body still computes in a subspace. We achieve this using a method we call subspace condensation, a variant on the classic static condensation precomputation. However, instead of a precomputation, we use the speed of subspace methods to perform the condensation at every frame. This approach allows the full space regions to be specified arbitrarily at runtime, and forms a natural two-way coupling with the subspace regions. While condensation is usually only applicable to linear materials, the speed of our technique enables its application to non-linear materials as well. We show the effectiveness of our approach by applying it to a variety of articulated character scenarios.

Subspace Condensation: Full Space Adaptivity for Subspace Deformations

Parallel Particles (P^2): A Parallel Position Based Approach for Fast and Stable Simulation of Granular Materials

Daniel Holz

Granular materials exhibit a large number of diverse physical phenomena which makes their numerical simulation challenging. When set in motion they flow almost like a fluid, while they can present high shear strength when at rest. Those macroscopic effects result from the material’s microstructure: a particle skeleton with interlocking particles which stick to and slide across each other, producing soil cohesion and friction. For the purpose of Earthmoving equipment operator training, we developed Parallel Particles (P2), a fast and stable position based granular material simulator which models inter-particle friction and adhesion and captures the physical nature of soil to an extend sufficient for training. Our parallel solver makes the approach scalable and applicable to modern multi-core architectures yielding the simulation speed required in this application. Using a regularization procedure, we successfully model visco-elastic particle interactions on the position level which provides real, physical parameters allowing for intuitive tuning. We employ the proposed technique in an Excavator training simulator and demonstrate that it yields physically plausible results at interactive to real-time simulation rates.

Parallel Particles (P^2): A Parallel Position Based Approach for Fast and Stable Simulation of Granular Materials

Continuous Collision Detection Between Points and Signed Distance Fields

Hongyi Xu, Jernej Barbic

We present an algorithm for fast continuous collision detection between points and signed distance fields. Such robust queries are often needed in computer animation, haptics and virtual reality applications, but have so far only been investigated for polygon (triangular) geometry representations. We demonstrate how to use an octree subdivision of the distance field for fast traversal of distance field cells. We also give a method to combine octree subdivision with points organized into a tree hierarchy, for efficient culling of continuous collision detection tests. We apply our method to multibody rigid simulations, and demonstrate that our method accelerates continuous collision detection between points and distance fields by an order of magnitude.

Continuous Collision Detection Between Points and Signed Distance Fields

Fast and Exact Continuous Collision Detection with Bernstein Sign Classification

Min Tang, Ruofeng Tong, Zhendong Wang, Dinesh Manocha

We present fast algorithms to perform accurate CCD queries between triangulated models. Our formulation uses properties of the Bernstein basis and Bezier curves and reduces the problem to evaluating signs of polynomials. We present a geometrically exact CCD algorithm based on the exact geometric computation paradigm to perform reliable Boolean collision queries. This algorithm is more than an order of magnitude faster than prior exact algorithms. We evaluate its performance for cloth and FEM simulations on CPUs and GPUs, and highlight the benefits.

Fast and Exact Continuous Collision Detection with Bernstein Sign Classification

Optimization Integrator for Large Time Steps

Theodore F. Gast, Craig Schroeder

Practical time steps in today’s state-of-the-art simulators typically rely on Newton’s method to solve large systems of nonlinear equations. In practice, this works well for small time steps but is unreliable at large time steps at or near the frame rate, particularly for difficult or stiff simulations. We show that recasting backward Euler as a minimization problem allows Newton’s method to be stabilized by standard optimization techniques with some novel improvements of our own. The resulting solver is capable of solving even the toughest simulations at the 24Hz frame rate and beyond. We show how simple collisions can be incorporated directly into the solver through constrained minimization without sacrificing efficiency. We also present novel penalty collision formulations for self collisions and collisions against scripted bodies designed for the unique demands of this solver.

Optimization Integrator for Large Time Steps

Efficient Denting and Bending of Rigid Bodies

Saket Patkar, Mridul Aanjaneya, Aric Bartle, Minjae Lee, Ronald Fedkiw

We present a novel method for the efficient denting and bending of rigid bodies without the need for expensive finite element simulations. Denting is achieved by deforming the triangulated surface of the target body based on a dent map computed on-the-fly from the projectile body using a Z-buffer algorithm with varying degrees of smoothing. Our method accounts for the angle of impact, is applicable to arbitrary shapes, readily scales to thousands of rigid bodies, is amenable to artist control, and also works well in combination with prescoring algorithms for fracture. Bending is addressed by augmenting a rigid body with an articulated skeleton which is used to drive skinning weights for the bending deformation. The articulated skeleton is simulated to include the effects of both elasticity and plasticity. Furthermore, we allow joints to be added dynamically so that bending can occur in a nonpredetermined way and/or as dictated by the artist. Conversely, we present an articulation condensation method that greatly simplifies large unneeded branches and chains on-the-fly for increased efficiency.

Efficient Denting and Bending of Rigid Bodies