Generalized object interactions in a component based simulation environment

Abstract

We describe the procedure for generalizing the representation of interacting virtual objects in a component based simulation framework. This extends our previous work where we did the same with the representation of the objects themselves. Isolating the interaction mechanisms into separate components provides us with several advantages; one of them is the ability to replace an interaction component by another, possibly at run time. An example simulation scene contains three kinds of interacting rigid bodies, using collision detection and response, simple velocity constraints, and scripted interactions. The example shows an engine that drives two gears and a fan. The generated airflow from the fan causes a balloon to hit another balloon. The goal of our work is to create a flexible an extensible “tinker toy” environment that incorporates different simulation domains while reusing existing tools.