Realistic computer simulations of physical elements such as rigid and deformable bodies, particles and fractures are commonplace in the modern world. In these simulations, the broad‐phase collision detection plays an important role in ensuring that simulations can scale with the number of objects. In these applications, several degrees of motion coherency, distinct spatial distributions and different types of objects exist; however, few attempts have been made at a generally applicable solution for their broad phase. In this regard, this work presents a novel broad‐phase collision detection algorithm based upon a hybrid SIMD optimized KD‐Tree and sweep‐and‐prune, aimed at general applicability. Our solution is optimized for several objects distributions, degrees of motion coherence and varying object sizes. These features are made possible by an efficient and idempotent two‐step tree optimization algorithm and by selectively enabling coherency optimizations. We have tested our solution under varying scenario setups and compared it to other solutions available in the literature and industry, up to a million simulated objects. The results show that our solution is competitive, with average performance values two to three times better than those achieved by other state‐of‐the‐art AABB‐based CPU solutions.
Research in the area of collision detection permeates most of the literature on simulations, interaction and agents planning, being commonly regarded as one of the main bottlenecks for large‐scale systems. To this day, despite its importance, most subareas of collision detection lack a common ground to test and validate solutions, reference implementations and widely accepted benchmark suites. In this paper, we delve into the broad‐phase of collision detection systems, providing both an open‐source framework, named Broadmark, to test, compare and validate algorithms, and an in‐deep analysis of the main techniques used so far to tackle the broad‐phase problem. The technical challenges of building this framework from the software and hardware perspectives are also described. Within our framework, several original and state‐of‐the‐art implementations of CPU and GPU algorithms are bundled, alongside three benchmark scenes to stress algorithms under several conditions. Furthermore, the system is designed to be easily extensible. We use our framework to bring out an extensive performance comparison among assembled solutions, detailing the current CPU and GPU state‐of‐the‐art on a common ground. We believe that Broadmark encompasses the principal insights and tools to derive and evaluate novel algorithms, thus greatly facilitating discussion about successful broad‐phase collision detection solutions.
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