Efficient Distance Computation Algorithm between Nearly Intersected Objects Using Dynamic Pivot Point in Virtual Environment Application

Abstract: Finding nearly accurate distance between two or more nearly intersecting three-dimensional (3D) objects is vital especially for collision determination such as in virtual surgeon simulation and real-time car crash simulation. Instead of performing broad phase collision detection, we need to check for accuracy of detection by running narrow phase collision detection. One of the important elements for narrow phase collision detection is to determine the precise distance between two or more nearly intersecting objects or polygons in order to prepare the area for potential colliding. Distance computation plays important roles in determine the exact point of contact between two or more nearly intersecting polygons where the preparation for collision detection is determined at the earlier stage. In this paper, we describes our current works of determining the distance between objects using dynamic pivot point that will be used as reference point to reduce the complexity searching for potential point of contacts. By using Axis-Aligned Bounding Box for each polygon, we calculate a dynamic pivot point that will become our reference point to determine the potential candidates for distance computation. The test our finding distance will be simplified by using our method instead of performing unneeded operations. Our method provides faster solution than the previous method where it helps to determine the point of contact efficiently and faster than the other method.