Section: Application Domains

Computer graphics animation

Computer graphics animation is dedicated to the numerical modeling and simulation of physical phenomena featuring a high visual impact. Typically, deformable objects prone to strong deformation, large displacements, complex and nonlinear or even nonsmooth behavior, are of interest for this community. We are interested in two main mechanical phenomena: on the one hand, the behavior of slender (nonlinear) structures such as rods, plates and shells; on the other hand, the effect of frictional contact between rigid or deformable bodies. In both cases the goal is to design realistic, efficient, robust, and controllable computational models. Whereas the problem of collision detection has become a mature field those recent years, simulating the collision response (in particular frictional contacts) in a realistic, robust and efficient way, still remains an important challenge. Another related issue we began to study is the simulation of heterogeneous objects such as granular or fibrous materials, which requires the design of new high-scales models for dynamics and contacts; indeed, for such large systems, simulating each interacting particle/fiber individually would be too much time-consuming for typical graphics applications. We also pursue some study on the design of high-order models for slender structures such as rods, plates or shells. Our current activity includes the static inversion of mechanical objects, which is of great importance in the field of artistic design, for the making of movies and video games for example. Such problems typically involve geometric fitting and parameters identification issues, both resolved with the help of constrained optimization. Finally, we have just started to study certain discrepancies (inexistence of solution) due to the combination of incompatible models such as contacting rigid bodies subject to Coulomb friction.