Section: Scientific Foundations

Interaction between models

Participants : Jérémie Allard, Stéphane Cotin, Hadrien Courtecuisse, Jérémie Dequidt, Christian Duriez, Laurent Grisoni.

We have been working on mechanical models, but also on the more global question to know how to mix together sophisticated mechanical system in the same simulation : although this question is, to our knowledge, barely studied by other research groups (we can note some early attempts though by Baraff, also SIAMES project), we consider this to be a key point for being able to provide complex surgical protocols in the near future. This aspect, among other, has allowed us to initiate, along with the CIMIT simulation group, the SOFA project, that is now international.

This work includes dealing with collision detection and collision response between deformable bodies ( [31] ). The model used for contact and friction may have a big impact on mechanical behavior of models. Contacts are often solved with simplified methods when real-time computation is required. However these simplified method could lead to incorrect behaviors. This is not acceptable in medical simulation. Thus, we propose an active research on models for contact and friction between deformable objects and on efficient solvers ( [32] , [30] , [33] ).