On Faster Bounding Volume Hierarchy Construction for Avatar Collision Detection

In many interactive computer graphics applications, users are represented as virtual characters called avatars. Collision detection is a pre-requisite in interactive computer graphics application so that appropriate response and realistic behaviour can be generated. However, it will not be easy to anticipate collisions since objects' motion are dependant on user interaction and avatar manipulation. Ideally, collision detection needs to be done efficiently, with accurate result in the shortest time possible. However, due to its computationally intensive nature, collision detection could cause a bottleneck to the system. A variety of techniques, data structures and algorithms were proposed to accelerate the collision detection process. Acceleration data structures are widely used not only to promote faster collision detection, but also in the field of ray tracing and deformable objects simulation. This paper discusses the use of bounding volume hierarchy as an acceleration data structure in collision detection for avatar in virtual environment, as well as similar methods used in interactive ray tracing and deformable objects simulation. Based on these findings, method for fast bounding volume hierarchy construction is proposed as a first step towards efficient avatar collision detection.