Interactive Manipulation of Rigid Body Simulations - Robotics Institute Carnegie Mellon University

Interactive Manipulation of Rigid Body Simulations

Jovan Popovic, Steven Seitz, Michael Erdmann, Zoran Popovic, and Andrew Witkin
Conference Paper, Proceedings of 27th Annual Conference on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques (SIGGRAPH '00), pp. 209 - 217, July, 2000

Abstract

Physical simulation of dynamic objects has become commonplace in computer graphics because it produces highly realistic animations. In this paradigm the animator provides few physical parameters such as the objects' initial positions and velocities, and the simulator automatically generates realistic motions. The resulting motion, however, is difficult to control because even a small adjustment of the input parameters can drastically affect the subsequent motion. Furthermore, the animator often wishes to change the end-result of the motion instead of the initial physical parameters. We describe a novel interactive technique for intuitive manipulation of rigid multi-body simulations. Using our system, the animator can select bodies at any time and simply drag them to desired locations. In response, the system computes the required physical parameters and simulates the resulting motion. Surface characteristics such as normals and elasticity coefficients can also be automatically adjusted to provide a greater range of feasible motions, if the animator so desires. Because the entire simulation editing process runs at interactive speeds, the animator can rapidly design complex physical animations that would be difficult to achieve with existing rigid body simulators.

BibTeX

@conference{Popovic-2000-8089,
author = {Jovan Popovic and Steven Seitz and Michael Erdmann and Zoran Popovic and Andrew Witkin},
title = {Interactive Manipulation of Rigid Body Simulations},
booktitle = {Proceedings of 27th Annual Conference on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques (SIGGRAPH '00)},
year = {2000},
month = {July},
pages = {209 - 217},
}