Fast Viscoelastic Behavior with Thin Features

We introduce a method for efficiently animating a wide range of deformable materials. We combine a high resolution surface mesh with a tetrahedral finite element simulator that makes use of frequent re-meshing. This combination allows for fast and detailed simulations of complex elastic and plastic behavior. We significantly expand the range of physical parameters that […]

Animating developable surfaces using nonconforming elements

We present a new discretization for the physics-based animation of developable surfaces. Constrained to not deform at all in-plane but free to bend out-of-plane, these are an excellent approximation for many materials, including most cloth, paper, and stiffer materials. Unfortunately the conforming (geometrically continuous) discretizations used in graphics break down in this limit. Our nonconforming […]

GDC Physics Tutorial

The slides for Erwin Coumans’ Game Developers Conference Physics Tutorial on parallel SPU physics are available for download and on-line here: http://www.bulletphysics.com/Bullet/wordpress/uncategorized/gdc-2008-physics-tutorial-on-parallel-game-physics-for-spu They cover parallelizing a typical collision detection and rigid body dynamics pipeline and provide links for further reading. Thanks for Erwin for the link.

Phun

Phun is an educational, entertaining and somewhat addictive piece of software for designing and exploring 2D multi-physics simulations in a cartoony fashion. Phun

Fast Collision Detection for Deformable Models using Representative-Triangles

We present a new approach to accelerate collision detection for deformable models. Our formulation applies to all triangulated models and significantly reduces the number of elementary tests between features of the mesh, i.e., vertices, edges and faces. We introduce the notion of Representative-Triangles, standard geometric triangles augmented with mesh feature information and use this representation […]

An Adaptive Contact Model for the Robust Simulation of Knots

In this paper, we present an adaptive model for dynamically deforming hyper-elastic rods. In contrast to existing approaches, adaptively introduced control points are not governed by geometric subdivision rules. Instead, their states are determined by employing a non-linear energy-minimization approach. Since valid control points are computed instantaneously, post-stabilization schemes are avoided and the stability of […]

A Fast and Stable Penalty Method for Rigid Body Simulation

Two methods have been used extensively to model resting contact for rigid body simulation. The first approach, the penalty method, applies virtual springs to surfaces in contact to minimize interpenetration. This method, as typically implemented, results in oscillatory behavior and considerable penetration. The second approach, based on formulating resting contact as a linear complementarity problem, […]

And Another Thesis

Claude Lacoursiere’s thesis on variational techniques for rigid bodies: Ghosts and Machines: regularized variational methods for interactive simulations of multibodies with dry frictional contacts

Some Theses…

Frank Losasso’s PhD thesis on fluid simulation, which contains previously unpublished work on coupling together SPH and level set based fluid simulations: Algorithms for Increasing the Efficiency and Fidelity of Fluid Simulation Eftychios Sifakis’ PhD thesis on face, muscle, speech, and surgery simulation: Algorithmic Aspects of the Simulation and Control of Computer Generated Human Anatomy […]

Efficient Bounds for Point-Based Animations

We introduce a new and efficient approach for collision detection in point-based animations, based on the fast computation of tight surface bounds. Our approach is able to tightly bound a high-resolution surface with a cost linear in the number of simulation nodes, which is typically small. We extend concepts about bounds of convex sets to […]