Abstract

We develop a method for reliable simulation of elastica in complex contact scenarios. Our focus is on firmly establishing three parameter-independent guarantees: that simulations of well-posed problems (a) have no interpenetrations, (b) obey causality, momentum- and energy-conservation laws, and (c) complete in finite time. We achieve these guarantees through a novel synthesis of asynchronous variational integrators, kinetic data structures, and a discretization of the contact barrier potential by an infinite sum of nested quadratic potentials. In a series of two- and three-dimensional examples, we illustrate that this method more easily handles challenging problems involving complex contact geometries, sharp features, and sliding during extremely tight contact.

Publications

SIGGRAPH (ACM Transactions on Graphics) 2009 [PDF] [Supplemental Tech Report]

@inproceedings{ACM,
         author = {David Harmon and Etienne Vouga and Breannan Smith and Rasmus Tamstorf and Eitan Grinspun},
         title = {Asynchronous contact mechanics},
         journal = {SIGGRAPH '09 (ACM Transactions on Graphics)},
         year = {2009},
	 isbn = {978-1-60558-726-4},
	 publisher = {ACM},
	 address = {New York, NY, USA}
}

Videos

An overview of our method

Source Code

To request the source code, please email , with the exact subject title "ACM Source Code" (without the quotes). You will immediately receive a response with directions on how to access the source code.