Fast simulation of soft-body deformation using connected rigid objects

Abstract

In the field of computer graphics, physics-based simulations have been actively researched for decades to represent visually realistic motions of soft-body objects. To deform stiff objects, methods such as the finite element method (FEM) and position-based dynamics (PBD) have been traditionally used for physical simulations. However, there are many situations in which it is difficult to perform interactive simulations at high speeds on relatively low-performance devices. In this paper, we propose an approach by which to undertake rapid simulations of soft-body deformation of a 3D mesh model. Assuming an input object with high damping coefficients, we approximated the simulation process using connected rigid objects. To do this, we extracted a skeletal structure from an input mesh and generated collision meshes by clustering and decomposing the skeletal voxels into convex groups. Distributing each contact force to the rigid objects properly, our approach shows that various types of object models can deform convincingly as if they were soft-body objects. Our approach is fully automated for general users and able to simulate both rigid and soft-body objects in the current animation pipeline.