Elastic rod simulation by chain shape matching with twisting effect

Abstract

One-dimensional deformable objects or elastic rods are widely used to represent threads, hair strands and elastic ropes in computer graphics. Such an object has the bending, stretching and twisting behaviors which are difficult to handle. To simulate deformable objects, a simple method called Lattice Shape Matching (LSM) [Rivers and James 2007] was recently proposed. LSM can handle the deformable objects ranging from soft bodies to stiff objects with an unconditional stability. For one-dimensional deformable objects, [Rungjiratananon et al. 2010] introduced a simplified model of LSM called Chain Shape Matching (CSM), which represents the one-dimensional deformable object by a chain of particles connected by segments. However, LSM and CSM can capture only the bending and stretching behaviors, but cannot handle twisting.