Physically-based Simulation of Cuts in Deformable Bodies: A Survey

Virtual cutting of deformable bodies has been an important and active research topic in physically-based simulation for more than a decade. A particular challenge in virtual cutting is the robust and efficient incorporation of cuts into an accurate computational model that is used for the simulation of the deformable body. This report presents a coherent summary of the state-of-the-art in virtual cutting of deformable bodies, focusing on the distinct geometrical and topological representations of the deformable body, as well as the specific numerical discretizations of the governing equations of motion. In particular, we discuss virtual cutting based on tetrahedral, hexahedral, and polyhedral meshes, in combination with standard, polyhedral, composite, and extended finite element discretizations. A separate section is devoted to meshfree methods. The report is complemented with an application study to assess the performance of virtual cutting simulators.