Continuous collision detection

January 01, 2009 | 0 Minute Read

Continuous collision detection (CCD) permits accurate time of contact determination and computation of contact data (points and normals) in multi-rigid body simulation. CCD methods are also usable for motion planning algorithms. Our method works with any type of geometric representation: triangle meshes, constructive solid geometries (CSGs), primitives, and even fractals. The CCD method's running time compares favorably to existing continuous collision detection schemes that only treat triangle meshes.

Still from bullets.mov showing a number of “bullets” fired at a stationary gun emplacement (this is a hard problem for discrete collision detection approaches) using rigid body dynamics. The bullets that hit the gun emplacement are properly deflected.

Videos:

[bullets.mov]

(3 MB) Bullets fired at gun emplacement

Relevant publications:

• Dylan Shell and Evan Drumwright. "Precise Generalized Contact Point and Normal Determination for Rigid Body Simulation". Proc. of the 24th ACM Symp. on Applied Computing (SAC). Honolulu, 2009.