Dynamic Simulation and Navigation for Virtual Environments

Principal Investigator: Ming Lin
Funding Agency: U.S. Army Research Office
Agency Number: DAAG55-98-1-0322

Abstract
We propose to address several fundamental problems in dynamic simulations and navigation for virtual prototyping and synthetic environments. Our emphasis is to develop better algorithms and software systems and to demonstrate their application. The set of research issues include:

• Collision detection among multiple moving objects, which include both rigid and deformable models, as well as non-convex objects and curved models.
• Impact response upon contact between the geometric models.
• Motion planning of autonomous or human agents in partially known environment.
• Applications to virtual prototyping and synthetic environments. These include dynamic simulation of screw insertion, tolerance verification for design preview, visualization of a missile simulator, and navigation in the virtual world.

Besides virtual prototyping and synthetic environments, these algorithms and systems should also have a significant impact on physically-based modeling, computer-aided design, robotics and animation.