Interactive Geometric Algorithms for Virtual Prototyping

Principal Investigator: Ming Lin
Funding Agency: Honda Research Grant
Agency Number: N/A

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 on design and development of future vehicles. 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 may include dynamic simulation of screw insertion, tolerance verification for design preview, visualization of the interior of a car, and auto crash analysis.

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. The proposed research is not only crucial to advancing high-performance 3D simulation and visualization, but also critical to numerous design and prototyping tasks in automobile design and development, ergonomic analysis and safety test.