Six-degree-of-freedom haptic display using localized contact computations

We present a six-degree-of-freedom haptic rendering algorithm using localized contact computations. It takes advantage of high motion coherence due to fast force update and spatial locality near the contact regions. We first decompose the surface of each polyhedron into convex pieces and construct bounding volume hierarchies for fast proximity queries. Once the objects are intersecting, the penetration depth (PD) is estimated in the contact neighborhood between each pair of decomposed convex pieces, using a new incremental method based on local optimization. Given the computed PD values, multiple contacts near a local region are clustered together to further speed up contact force determination. We have implemented these algorithms and applied them to complex contact scenarios consisting of multiple contacts.