Realistic animation of rigid bodies

The theoretical background and implementation for a computer animation system to model a general class of three dimensional dynamic processes for arbitrary rigid bodies is presented. The simulation of the dynamic interaction among rigid bodies takes into account various physical characteristics such as elasticity, friction, mass, and moment of inertia to produce rolling and sliding contacts. If a set of bodies is statically unstable, the system dynamically drives it toward a stable configuration while obeying the geometric constraints of the system including general non-holonomic constraints. The system also provides a physical environment with which objects animated using more traditional techniques can interact. The degree of interaction is easily controlled by the animator. A computationally efficient method to merge kinematics and dynamics for articulated rigid bodies to produce realistic motion is presented.