Physically based collision response in virtual assembly

Evaluating the design of products using virtual assembly during the early stages of design not only decreases the impact of design modifications on final products, but also eliminates the time, cost, and material associated with construction of physical prototypes. Realistic part interaction is an important component of an effective virtual assembly application. Different form physically based animation, parts could not move freely because they are always constrained by hand during assembly process. So hand-part interaction should be taken into account when modeling part interaction. A novel method which could handle part interaction under the constraint of hand is proposed. A compliant approaches was implemented to model interaction between parts while finite displacement flexible constrain was dynamics constructed to restrict the motion of part. This method could achieve much more realistic part movement in assembly simulation than those methods which consider part interaction only. Experiment shows that this method could greatly enhance assembly operation in virtual assembly.