A Voxel-Based Approach to Approximate Collision Handling

We present an approach for approximate collision handling which uses probabilistic information for improving the calculated collision response between objects in real-time physically based animation. The system uses an interruptible collision detection mechanism, which checks for intersections between successive levels of a bounding volume hierarchy (BVH). Traditionally, when the collision detection stage is interrupted in such systems, an approximation of contacts is required to deliver a suitable collision response. In our system we use a BVH tree based on voxels and use the voxel occupancy information as well as the bounding volume interpenetration depth to improve the approximation of contact points when the collision handling stage is interrupted. We also present an evaluation of the efficiency and plausibility of the resulting animation.