An object-oriented system for dynamics-based 3D cloth simulation

The dynamics-based 3D cloth simulation has very broad applications. Generally, it involves mathematical modeling, collision detection between objects, self-collision detection for deformable object, and numerical solution of differential equations. As a result, the final simulation software system is usually complex. On the other hand, currently no suitable open-source software systems are publicly available for one to easily use so that his/her idea can be quickly tested. In this paper we first present a data-centric paradigm for dynamics-based simulation, and then propose an object oriented architecture for cloth simulation. In this architecture, we design a common abstract base class for all objects and bounding-box based collision detection, from which we can easily simulate a given type of object by creating a new inherited object class. The inherited class can easily reuse the existing modules in its base class, and hence decrease the number of code lines significantly, thus reducing the complexity and coupling between modules. In particular, when a new algorithm is designed, we can expediently test and verify its effectiveness by directly reuse the other modules without having to reprogram them. The clothing simulation system that we have implemented has fully demonstrated the reusability of the proposed architecture. This architecture also has the potential to be easily used for other types of dynamics-based 3D simulations.