18 research outputs found

    High Resolution Sharp Computational Methods for Elliptic and Parabolic Problems in Complex Geometries

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    IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON VISUALIZATION AND COMPUTER GRAPHICS 1 Impulse Based Control of Joints and Muscles

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    Abstract — We propose a novel approach to proportional derivative (PD) control exploiting the fact that these equations can be solved analytically for a single degree of freedom. The analytic solution indicates what the PD controller would accomplish in isolation without interference from neighboring joints, gravity and external forces, outboard limbs, etc. Our approach to time integration includes an inverse dynamics formulation that automatically incorporates global feedback so that the per joint predictions are achieved. This effectively decouples stiffness from control so that we obtain the desired target regardless of the stiffness of the joint, which merely determines when we get there. We start with simple examples to illustrate our method, and then move on to more complex examples including PD control of line segment muscle actuators. Index Terms — proportional derivative control, torque control, muscle control, animation I

    A Virtual Node Algorithm for Changing Mesh Topology during Simulation

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    We propose a virtual node algorithm that allows material to separate along arbitrary (possibly branched) piecewise linear paths through a mesh. The material within an element is fragmented by creating several replicas of the element and assigning a portion of real material to each replica. This results in elements that contain both real material and empty regions. The missing material is contained in another copy (or copies) of this element. Our new virtual node algorithm automatically determines the number of replicas and the assignment of material to each. Moreover, it provides the degrees of freedom required to simulate the partially or fully fragmented material in a fashion consistent with the embedded geometry. This approach enables efficient simulation of complex geometry with a simple mesh, i.e. the geometry need not align itself with element boundaries. It also alleviates many shortcomings of traditional Lagrangian simulation techniques for meshes with changing topology. For example, slivers do not require small CFL time step restrictions since they are embedded in well shaped larger elements. To enable robust simulation of embedded geometry, we propose new algorithms for handling rigid body and self collisions. In addition, we present several mechanisms for influencing and controlling fracture with grain boundaries, prescoring, etc. We illustrate our method for both volumetric and thin-shell simulations

    Simulating Water and Smoke with an Octree Data Structure

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    We present a method for simulating water and smoke on an unrestricted octree data structure exploiting mesh refinement techniques to capture the small scale visual detail. We propose a new technique for discretizing the Poisson equation on this octree grid. The resulting linear system is symmetric positive definite enabling the use of fast solution methods such as preconditioned conjugate gradients, whereas the standard approximation to the Poisson equation on an octree grid results in a non-symmetric linear system which is more computationally challenging to invert. The semi-Lagrangian characteristic tracing technique is used to advect the velocity, smoke density, and even the level set making implementation on an octree straightforward. In the case of smoke, we have multiple refinement criteria including object boundaries, optical depth, and vorticity concentration. In the case of water, we refine near the interface as determined by the zero isocontour of the level set function

    Pre-stabilization for rigid body articulation with contact and collision

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    Figure 1: The ability to articulate rigid bodies allows animators to build more complex physical systems
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