Displacement constraints for interactive modeling and animation of articulated structures

Abstract : This paper presents an integrated set of methods for the automatic construction and interactive animation of solid systems that satisfy specified geometric constraints. Displacement contraints enable the user to design articulated bodies with various degrees of freedom in rotation or in translation at highes and to restrict the scope of the movement at will. The graph of constrained objects may contain closed loops. The animation is achieved by decoupling the free motion of each solid component from the action of the constraints. We do this with iterative tunings in displacements. The method is currently implemented in a dynamically based animation system and takes the physical parameters into account while reestablishing the constraints. In particular, first-order momenta are preserved during this process. The approach would be easy to extend to modeling systems or animation modules without a physical model just by allowing the user to control more parameters. (source Springer)