Real-time Finite-elements Simulation of General Visco-elastic Materials for Haptic Presentation

This paper introduces a methodology to simulate the dynamics of visco-elastic 3-dimensional bodies in realtime using a nite element approach. The method is currently being applied to a haptic simulation of a deformable body incorporating mass, damping, and sti ness. The central idea in this scheme is to reduce the computation required in regions which are to the periphery of area of interaction between the virtual haptic device and the virtual body. This is accomplished by implementing a multi-layer mesh; the top layer, or parent mesh, consisting of a coarse mesh, while child meshes represent sub-regions of the coarse mesh but have a much ner resolution. The e ective decoupling of regions enables the system not only to have di erent resolutions in di erent regions, but also allows the regions of the mesh to be updated at di erent frequencies. The key to achieving this is by utilizing equivalent impedances.