Efficient Animation of Point-Sampled Thin Shells

• Published in: Computer graphics forum 2005-09, Vol.24 (3), p.667-676
• Main Authors: Wicke, Martin, Steinemann, Denis, Gross, Markus
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Computer animation; Computer graphics; Shells; Studies; Three dimensional imaging; Uranus
• ISSN: 0167-7055; 1467-8659
• DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-8659.2005.00891.x

We present a novel framework for the efficient simulation and animation of discrete thin shells. Our method takes a point sampled surface as input and performs all necessary computations without intermediate triangulation. We discretize the thin shell functional using so-called fibers. Such fibers are locally embedded parametric curves crisscrossing individual point samples. In combination, they create a dense mesh representing the surface structure and connectivity for the shell computations. In particular, we utilize the fibers to approximate the differential surface operators of the thin shell functional. The polynomials underlying the fiber representation allow for a robust and fast simulation of thin shell behavior. Our method supports both elastic and plastic deformations as well as fracturing and tearing of the material. To compute surfaces with rich surface detail, we designed a multiresolution representation which maps a high-resolution surface onto a fiber network of lower resolution. This makes it possible to animate densely sampled models of very high surface complexity. While being tuned for point sampled objects, the presented framework is versatile and can also take triangle meshes or triangle soups as input. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]