Object-Space Interference Detection on Programmable Graphics Hardware

Paper
Paper Slides DivX (32 MB)

The movie shows several panes: top left -- rendering output; top right -- overlap count map (including MIP levels 0-8); middle and bottom rows -- node pair index map (the red ramp is level 0, containing index values 0-255, which are only read).
Detailed explanations.
Abstract
We present a novel method for checking the intersection of polygonal models on current graphics accelerator boards (GPU). All SIMD computations are performed on the GPU using vertex and fragment programs. The result is either the list of intersecting polygons, or just its length; the former can be read back to the CPU by a texture, while the latter is fed back using the occlusion counter.

Our approach consists of two stages: simultaneous traversal of bounding volume hierarchies in order to quickly determine potentially intersecting sets of polygons, and the actual polygon intersection tests in object space. Both stages are mapped on the graphics hardware using floating point textures extensively.

Unlike previous methods, our method does all computations in object space and does not make any requirements on connectivity or topology.

Keywords
GPU, collision detection, SIMD, simulation.
BibTeX entry
@INPROCEEDINGS{Zach03c
,  author = "Alexander Gress and Gabriel Zachmann"
,  title = "Object-Space Interference Detection on Programmable Graphics
            Hardware"
,  booktitle = "SIAM Conf. on Geometric Design and Computing"
,  year = 2003
,  address = "Seattle, Washington"
,  month = nov # "13--17"
,  publisher = "Nashboro Press"
,  editor = "M. L. Lucian and M. Neamtu"
,  isbn = "0-0-9728482-3-1"
,  pages = "311--328"
}
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Gabriel Zachmann
Last modified: Thu Apr 26 16:45:31 MDT 2007