8,337 research outputs found
Kinetic and Dynamic Delaunay tetrahedralizations in three dimensions
We describe the implementation of algorithms to construct and maintain
three-dimensional dynamic Delaunay triangulations with kinetic vertices using a
three-simplex data structure. The code is capable of constructing the geometric
dual, the Voronoi or Dirichlet tessellation. Initially, a given list of points
is triangulated. Time evolution of the triangulation is not only governed by
kinetic vertices but also by a changing number of vertices. We use
three-dimensional simplex flip algorithms, a stochastic visibility walk
algorithm for point location and in addition, we propose a new simple method of
deleting vertices from an existing three-dimensional Delaunay triangulation
while maintaining the Delaunay property. The dual Dirichlet tessellation can be
used to solve differential equations on an irregular grid, to define partitions
in cell tissue simulations, for collision detection etc.Comment: 29 pg (preprint), 12 figures, 1 table Title changed (mainly
nomenclature), referee suggestions included, typos corrected, bibliography
update
Geometric transformations in octrees using shears
Existent algorithms to perform geometric transformations on octrees
can be classified in two families: inverse transformation and address
computation ones. Those in the inverse transformation family
essentially resample the target octree from the source one, and are
able to cope with all the affine transformations. Those in the address
computation family only deal with translations, but are commonly
accepted as faster than the former ones for they do no intersection
tests, but directly calculate the transformed address of each black
node in the source tree. This work introduces a new translation
algorithm that shows to perform better than previous one when very
small displacements are involved. This property is particularly useful
in applications such as simulation, robotics or computer animation.Postprint (published version
Combined 3D thinning and greedy algorithm to approximate realistic particles with corrected mechanical properties
The shape of irregular particles has significant influence on micro- and
macro-scopic behavior of granular systems. This paper presents a combined 3D
thinning and greedy set-covering algorithm to approximate realistic particles
with a clump of overlapping spheres for discrete element method (DEM)
simulations. First, the particle medial surface (or surface skeleton), from
which all candidate (maximal inscribed) spheres can be generated, is computed
by the topological 3D thinning. Then, the clump generation procedure is
converted into a greedy set-covering (SCP) problem.
To correct the mass distribution due to highly overlapped spheres inside the
clump, linear programming (LP) is used to adjust the density of each component
sphere, such that the aggregate properties mass, center of mass and inertia
tensor are identical or close enough to the prototypical particle. In order to
find the optimal approximation accuracy (volume coverage: ratio of clump's
volume to the original particle's volume), particle flow of 3 different shapes
in a rotating drum are conducted. It was observed that the dynamic angle of
repose starts to converge for all particle shapes at 85% volume coverage
(spheres per clump < 30), which implies the possible optimal resolution to
capture the mechanical behavior of the system.Comment: 34 pages, 13 figure
Evaluating rules of interaction for object manipulation in cluttered virtual environments
A set of rules is presented for the design of interfaces that allow virtual objects to be manipulated in 3D virtual environments (VEs). The rules differ from other interaction techniques because they focus on the problems of manipulating objects in cluttered spaces rather than open spaces. Two experiments are described that were used to evaluate the effect of different interaction rules on participants' performance when they performed a task known as "the piano mover's problem." This task involved participants in moving a virtual human through parts of a virtual building while simultaneously manipulating a large virtual object that was held in the virtual human's hands, resembling the simulation of manual materials handling in a VE for ergonomic design. Throughout, participants viewed the VE on a large monitor, using an "over-the-shoulder" perspective. In the most cluttered VEs, the time that participants took to complete the task varied by up to 76% with different combinations of rules, thus indicating the need for flexible forms of interaction in such environments
PHYSICS-BASED SHAPE MORPHING AND PACKING FOR LAYOUT DESIGN
The packing problem, also named layout design, has found wide applications in the mechanical engineering field. In most cases, the shapes of the objects do not change during the packing process. However, in some applications such as vehicle layout design, shape morphing may be required for some specific components (such as water and fuel reservoirs). The challenge is to fit a component of sufficient size in the available space in a crowded environment (such as the vehicle under-hood) while optimizing the overall performance objectives of the vehicle and improving design efficiency. This work is focused on incorporating component shape design into the layout design process, i.e. finding the optimal locations and orientations of all the components within a specified volume, as well as the suitable shapes of selected ones. The first major research issue is to identify how to efficiently and accurately morph the shapes of components respecting the functional constraints. Morphing methods depend on the geometrical representation of the components. The traditional parametric representation may lend itself easily to modification, but it relies on assumption that the final approximate shape of the object is known, and therefore, the morphing freedom is very limited. To morph objects whose shape can be changed arbitrarily in layout design, a mesh based morphing method based on a mass-spring physical model is developed. For this method, there is no need to explicitly specify the deformations and the shape morphing freedom is not confined. The second research issue is how to incorporate component shape design into a layout design process. Handling the complete problem at once may be beyond our reach,therefore decomposition and multilevel approaches are used. At the system level, a genetic algorithm (GA) is applied to find the positions and orientations of the objects, while at the sub-system or component level, morphing is accomplished for select components. Although different packing applications may have different objectives and constraints, they all share some common issues. These include CAD model preprocessing for packing purpose, data format translation during the packing process if performance evaluation and morphing use different representation methods, efficiency of collision detection methods, etc. These common issues are all brought together under the framework of a general methodology for layout design with shape morphing. Finally, practical examples of vehicle under-hood/underbody layout design with the mass-spring physical model based shape morphing are demonstrated to illustrate the proposed approach before concluding and proposing continuing work
Automated sequence and motion planning for robotic spatial extrusion of 3D trusses
While robotic spatial extrusion has demonstrated a new and efficient means to
fabricate 3D truss structures in architectural scale, a major challenge remains
in automatically planning extrusion sequence and robotic motion for trusses
with unconstrained topologies. This paper presents the first attempt in the
field to rigorously formulate the extrusion sequence and motion planning (SAMP)
problem, using a CSP encoding. Furthermore, this research proposes a new
hierarchical planning framework to solve the extrusion SAMP problems that
usually have a long planning horizon and 3D configuration complexity. By
decoupling sequence and motion planning, the planning framework is able to
efficiently solve the extrusion sequence, end-effector poses, joint
configurations, and transition trajectories for spatial trusses with
nonstandard topologies. This paper also presents the first detailed computation
data to reveal the runtime bottleneck on solving SAMP problems, which provides
insight and comparing baseline for future algorithmic development. Together
with the algorithmic results, this paper also presents an open-source and
modularized software implementation called Choreo that is machine-agnostic. To
demonstrate the power of this algorithmic framework, three case studies,
including real fabrication and simulation results, are presented.Comment: 24 pages, 16 figure
Identification of Long-lived Charged Particles using Time-Of-Flight Systems at the Upgraded LHC detectors
We study the impact of picosecond precision timing detection systems on the
LHC experiments' long-lived particle search program during the HL-LHC era. We
develop algorithms that allow us to reconstruct the mass of such charged
particles and perform particle identification using the time-of-flight
measurement. We investigate the reach for benchmark scenarios as a function of
the timing resolution, and find sensitivity improvement of up to a factor of
ten, depending on the new heavy particle mass.Comment: 20 pages, 13 figure
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