Abstract

We present a new method for simulating volume conserving deformable bodies using an impulse-based approach. In order to simulate a deformable body a tetrahedral model is generated from an arbitrary triangle mesh. All resulting tetrahedrons are assigned to volume constraints which ensure the conservation of the total volume. For the simulation of such a constraint impulses are computed and applied to the particles of the assigned tetrahedrons. The algorithm is easy to implement and ensures exact volume conservation in each simulation step.

Deformable body with strong springs (Mpeg)

Deformable body with weak springs (Mpeg)

Paper:

Raphael Diziol, Jan Bender and Daniel Bayer, "Volume Conserving Simulation of Deformable Bodies", Short Paper Proceedings of Eurographics, Munich, March 2009

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Abstract:

This paper presents an efficient simulation method for parallel cloth simulation. The presented method uses an impulse-based approach for the simulation. Cloth simulation has many application areas like computer animation, computer games or virtual reality. Simulation methods often make the assumption that cloth is an elastic material. In this way the simulation can be performed very efficiently by using spring forces. These methods disregard the fact that many textiles cannot be stretched significantly. The simulation of inextensible textiles with methods based on spring forces leads to stiff differential equations which cause a loss of performance. In contrast to that, in this paper a method is presented that simulates cloth by using impulses. The mesh of a cloth model is subdivided into strips of constraints. The impulses for each strip can be computed in linear time. The strips that have no common particle are independent from each other and can be solved in parallel. The impulse-based method allows the realistic simulation of inextensible textiles in real-time.

Bodies falling in a piece of cloth (DivX, Mpeg)

Cloth simulation (DivX, Mpeg)

Paper:

Jan Bender and Daniel Bayer, "Parallel simulation of inextensible cloth", Virtual Reality Interactions and Physical Simulations (VRIPhys), Grenoble, November 13-14, 2008

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Abstract:

In this paper an impulse-based method for cloth simulation is presented. The simulation of cloth is required in different application areas like computer animation, virtual reality or computer games. Simulation methods often assume that cloth is an elastic material. With this assumption the simulation can be performed very efficiently using spring forces. The problem is that many textiles cannot be stretched significantly. A realistic simulation of these textiles with spring forces leads to stiff differential equations which cause a deterioration of performance. The impulse-based method described in this paper solves this problem and allows the realistic simulation of inelastic textiles.

Simulation of inextensible cloth (DivX, Mpeg)

Paper:

Jan Bender, "Impulse-based simulation of inextensible cloth", Computer Graphics and Visualization (CGV 2008) - IADIS Multi Conference on Computer Science and Information Systems, Amsterdam 2008

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Abstract:

This paper describes an impulse-based dynamic simulation method for articulated bodies which has a linear time complexity. Existing linear-time methods are either based on a reduced-coordinate formulation or on Lagrange multipliers. The impulse-based simulation has advantages over these well-known methods. Unlike reduced-coordinate methods, it handles nonholonomic constraints like velocity-dependent ones and is very easy to implement. In contrast to Lagrange multiplier methods the impulse-based approach has no drift problem and an additional stabilisation is not necessary. The presented method computes a simulation step in O(n) time for acyclic multi-body systems containing equality constraints. Closed kinematic chains can be handled by dividing the model into different acyclic parts. Each of these parts is solved independently from each other. The dependencies between the single parts are solved by an iterative method. In the same way inequality constraints can be integrated in the simulation process in order to handle collisions and permanent contacts with dynamic and static friction.

Additional information:

The paper describes an algorithm to compute the required impulses in linear time and linear space.

Tree with 127 bodies and joints (DivX, Mpeg)

Paper:

Jan Bender, "Impulse-based dynamic simulation in linear time", In Journal of Computer Animation and Virtual Worlds, John Wiley & Sons Ltd, 2007

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