Section: Software and Platforms

SOFA

Participants : François Faure, Ali Hamadi Dicko, Armelle Bauer, Olivier Carré, Matthieu Nesme, Romain Testylier, Moreno Trlin.

Figure 2. SOFA is an open source simulator for physically based modeling.

SOFA is a C++ library primarily targeted at medical simulation research. Based on an advanced software architecture, it allows to (1) create complex and evolving simulations by combining new algorithms with algorithms already included in SOFA; (2) modify most parameters of the simulation – deformable behavior, surface representation, solver, constraints, collision algorithm, etc. – by simply editing an XML file; (3) build complex models from simpler ones using a scene-graph description; (4) efficiently simulate the dynamics of interacting objects using abstract equation solvers; and (5) reuse and easily compare a variety of available methods.

SOFA is gaining momentum. A start-up based on SOFA, InSimo, has been created in Strasbourg by Inria people, and one of our former engineers, François Jourdes, has been hired. A SOFA-specific workshop was co-located with conference Vriphys'13 in Lille, with 50 attendants and the participation of several companies including CAE (a Canadian world leader in simulation), Haption, BASF, InSimo and others.