The application of three-dimensional mass-spring structures in the real-time simulation of sheet materials for computer generated imagery

Despite the resources devoted to computer graphics technology over the last 40 years, there is still a need to increase the realism with which flexible materials are simulated. However, to date reported methods are restricted in their application by their use of two-dimensional structures and implicit integration methods that lend themselves to modelling cloth-like sheets but not stiffer, thicker materials in which bending moments play a significant role. This thesis presents a real-time, computationally efficient environment for simulations of sheet materials. The approach described differs from other techniques principally through its novel use of multilayer sheet structures. In addition to more accurately modelling bending moment effects, it also allows the effects of increased temperature within the environment to be simulated. Limitations of this approach include the increased difficulties of calibrating a realistic and stable simulation compared to implicit based methods. A series of experiments are conducted to establish the effectiveness of the technique, evaluating the suitability of different integration methods, sheet structures, and simulation parameters, before conducting a Human Computer Interaction (HCI) based evaluation to establish the effectiveness with which the technique can produce credible simulations. These results are also compared against a system that utilises an established method for sheet simulation and a hybrid solution that combines the use of 3D (i.e. multilayer) lattice structures with the recognised sheet simulation approach. The results suggest that the use of a three-dimensional structure does provide a level of enhanced realism when simulating stiff laminar materials although the best overall results were achieved through the use of the hybrid model

The Construction of Balanced Bounding-Volume Hierarchies using Spatial Object Median Splitting Method for Collision Detection

Finding two or more contact points between rigid bodies simulation is always a fundamental task in virtual environment. Furthermore, the contact point needs to be accurately reported as soon as possible within 30-60 frames per second (fps) between moving polyhedral. This article introduced an efficient splitting method that is able to divide the bounding-volume of Axis Aligned Bounding-Box (AABB) hierarchies into a balanced tree. The construction of well-balanced tree will helps to improve the speed of the intersection between rigid bodies’ objects

Articular human joint modelling

Copyright @ Cambridge University Press 2009.The work reported in this paper encapsulates the theories and algorithms developed to drive the core analysis modules of the software which has been developed to model a musculoskeletal structure of anatomic joints. Due to local bone surface and contact geometry based joint kinematics, newly developed algorithms make the proposed modeller different from currently available modellers. There are many modellers that are capable of modelling gross human body motion. Nevertheless, none of the available modellers offer complete elements of joint modelling. It appears that joint modelling is an extension of their core analysis capability, which, in every case, appears to be musculoskeletal motion dynamics. It is felt that an analysis framework that is focused on human joints would have significant benefit and potential to be used in many orthopaedic applications. The local mobility of joints has a significant influence in human motion analysis, in understanding of joint loading, tissue behaviour and contact forces. However, in order to develop a bone surface based joint modeller, there are a number of major problems, from tissue idealizations to surface geometry discretization and non-linear motion analysis. This paper presents the following: (a) The physical deformation of biological tissues as linear or non-linear viscoelastic deformation, based on spring-dashpot elements. (b) The linear dynamic multibody modelling, where the linear formulation is established for small motions and is particularly useful for calculating the equilibrium position of the joint. This model can also be used for finding small motion behaviour or loading under static conditions. It also has the potential of quantifying the joint laxity. (c) The non-linear dynamic multibody modelling, where a non-matrix and algorithmic formulation is presented. The approach allows handling complex material and geometrical nonlinearity easily. (d) Shortest path algorithms for calculating soft tissue line of action geometries. The developed algorithms are based on calculating minimum ‘surface mass’ and ‘surface covariance’. An improved version of the ‘surface covariance’ algorithm is described as ‘residual covariance’. The resulting path is used to establish the direction of forces and moments acting on joints. This information is needed for linear or non-linear treatment of the joint motion. (e) The final contribution of the paper is the treatment of the collision. In the virtual world, the difficulty in analysing bodies in motion arises due to body interpenetrations. The collision algorithm proposed in the paper involves finding the shortest projected ray from one body to the other. The projection of the body is determined by the resultant forces acting on it due to soft tissue connections under tension. This enables the calculation of collision condition of non-convex objects accurately. After the initial collision detection, the analysis involves attaching special springs (stiffness only normal to the surfaces) at the ‘potentially colliding points’ and motion of bodies is recalculated. The collision algorithm incorporates the rotation as well as translation. The algorithm continues until the joint equilibrium is achieved. Finally, the results obtained based on the software are compared with experimental results obtained using cadaveric joints

Efficient Distance Computation Algorithm Between Nearly Intersect Objects Using Dynamic Pivot Point In Virtual Environment Application

Finding nearly accurate distance between two or more nearly intersecting three-dimensional (3D) objects is vital especially for collision determination such as in virtual surgeon simulation and real-time car crash simulation. Instead of performing broad phase collision detection, we need to check for accuracy of detection by running narrow phase collision detection. One of the important elements for narrow phase collision detection is to determine the precise distance between two or more nearly intersecting objects or polygons in order to prepare the area for potential colliding. Distance computation plays important roles in determine the exact point of contact between two or more nearly intersecting polygons where the preparation for collision detection is determined at the earlier stage. In this paper, we describes our current works of determining the distance between objects using dynamic pivot point that will be used as reference point to reduce the complexity searching for potential point of contacts. By using Axis-Aligned Bounding Box for each polygon, we calculate a dynamic pivot point that will become our reference point to determine the potential candidates for distance computation. The test our finding distance will be simplified by using our method instead of performing unneeded operations. Our method provides faster solution than the previous method where it helps to determine the point of contact efficiently and faster than the other method

Efficient Distance Computation Algorithm between Nearly Intersected Objects Using Dynamic Pivot Point in Virtual Environment Application

Finding nearly accurate distance between two or more nearly intersecting three-dimensional (3D) objects is vital especially for collision determination such as in virtual surgeon simulation and real-time car crash simulation. Instead of performing broad phase collision detection, we need to check for accuracy of detection by running narrow phase collision detection. One of the important elements for narrow phase collision detection is to determine the precise distance between two or more nearly intersecting objects or polygons in order to prepare the area for potential colliding. Distance computation plays important roles in determine the exact point of contact between two or more nearly intersecting polygons where the preparation for collision detection is determined at the earlier stage. In this paper, we describes our current works of determining the distance between objects using dynamic pivot point that will be used as reference point to reduce the complexity searching for potential point of contacts. By using Axis-Aligned Bounding Box for each polygon, we calculate a dynamic pivot point that will become our reference point to determine the potential candidates for distance computation. The test our finding distance will be simplified by using our method instead of performing unneeded operations. Our method provides faster solution than the previous method where it helps to determine the point of contact efficiently and faster than the other method.Comment: 6 page

Continuous collision detection for ellipsoids

We present an accurate and efficient algorithm for continuous collision detection between two moving ellipsoids. We start with a highly optimized implementation of interference testing between two stationary ellipsoids based on an algebraic condition described in terms of the signs of roots of the characteristic equation of two ellipsoids. Then we derive a time-dependent characteristic equation for two moving ellipsoids, which enables us to develop a real-time algorithm for computing the time intervals in which two moving ellipsoids collide. The effectiveness of our approach is demonstrated with several practical examples. © 2006 IEEE.published_or_final_versio

Development of Real-Time Virtual Environment with Hierarchical Construction

The development of real-time virtual environment is always a fundamental task for research to come out with a good testing procedure. Regardless any software application that has been used to develop the virtual environment, maintaining real-time aspect such as physic simulation, fluid simulation, collision detection, and others is definitely important. Numerous attempts has been introduced in order to develop nearly perfect virtual environment but at the end the solution only cater for some specific settings that must be implemented before we properly visualize the virtual environment. In this paper, we consider few elements that can be used to visualize their virtual environment and perhaps becoming a common visualization procedure to differentiate and compare with others