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SUMMARYIn this paper, an algorithm for simulating the elastostatic deformation of multiple objects with different material properties using boundary element method is introduced. By tessellating the surface of a geometric model into elements and classifying all the element nodes into different groups with different attributes, and partitioning the stiffness matrix into several sub-matrices according to these attributes, a compact expression for the unknown variables is obtained. Comparing with the direct matrix inversion method, the dimension of the system matrix in the expression has been effectively reduced. Besides, this expression shows that the deformation of a multi-component object can be simulated in a way similar to that of a single-component object. The capacitance method is adopted for evaluating the deformation of the object. Experimental results illustrate that the proposed method is practical and efficient.

Computer simulation of object deformation has wide applications in areas such as movies, computer graphics, computer games, etc. Numerous methods have been proposed to simulate deformable objects. A common practice of simulating deformable objects is to use physically-based approaches which include the mass-spring system and the finite element method (FEM). The massspring system only gives a coarse estimation of object deformation whereas the FEM requires generating solid volumetric elements which is a tedious and time consuming process. The use of boundary element method (BEM) allows objects to be deformed without generating solid volumetric elements.In order to achieve real-time deformation, all these methods require time-consuming precomputation process. In this paper, a comparison is made between the FEM and the BEM techniques. We propose to adopt linear elements of boundary element technique for real-time applications. The method not only allows physically-based and real-time deformation, it also requires much shorter time for the pre-computation process. Experimental results show that the time required for the pre-computation process and real-time deformation can be enhanced significantly by adopting linear elements of BEM.

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