Managing the Complexity of Physically Based Modelling in Virtual Reality

Physically based simulation has been used to a limited degree in virtual reality (VR) because of the performance demands imposed by the real-time requirement. Simulating complex physical models in VR is attractive as it adds a richness of detail to virtual environments which is valuable in a number of application areas. In order to successfully use physical simulation in VR it is essential to reduce the computational cost. To this end we describe methods for minimising the complexity of models prior to and during simulation. We illustrate adaptive variation in complexity by dynamic addition and removal of primitives from a Newton’s cradle model. A sequence of images is used to show this technique performs sufficiently well to enable user interaction with the cradle.