An autowave based methodology for deformable object simulation

This paper presents a new methodology for deformable object simulation by drawing an analogy between autowaves and elastic deformation. The potential energy stored in an elastic body as a result of a deformation caused by an external force is propagated among mass points by non-linear autowaves. The novelty of the methodology is that autowave techniques are established to describe the potential energy distribution of a deformation for extrapolating internal elastic forces, and non-linear material properties are modelled with non-linear autowaves other than geometric non-linearity. A haptic virtual reality system has been developed for deformation simulation with force feedback. The proposed methodology not only deals with large-range deformations, but also accommodates isotropic, anisotropic and inhomogeneous materials by simply modifying diffusion coefficients.