A constraint-based approach to rigid body dynamics for virtual reality applications

The GALILEO-system is a developmental state-of-the-art rigid body simulation tool with a strong bias to the simulation of unilateral contacts for virtual reality applications. On the one hand the system is aimed at closing the gap between the ‘paradigms of impulse-based simulation’ and of ‘constraint-based simulation’. On the other hand the chosen simulation techniques enable a balancing of the trade-off between the real-time demands of virtual environments (i.e. 15-25 visualizations per second) and the degree of physical correctness of the simulation. The focus of this paper lies on the constraint-based simulation approach to threedimensional multibody systems including a scalable friction model. This is only one of the two main components of the GALILEO-software-module. A nonlinear complementarity problem (NCP) describes the equations of motion, the contact conditions of the objects and the Coulomb friction model. Further on we show, as an interesting evaluation example from the field of ‘classical mechanics’, the first rigid body simulation of the tippe-top.