Solving the collision detection problem

Abstract

Considers how a happy convergence of factors in the mid 195Os led CEIT and the University of Navarre to team up for an ambitious project. First, we accumulated expertise in the fields of computer graphics, mechanism analysis and solid modeling. Second, the appearance of 3D graphics workstations on the market allowed us to put our experience to work to develop CompAMM (Computer Analysis of Machines and Mechanisms), a general-purpose program to simulate and visualize in real time the kinematic analysis of complex articulated bodies. We got a Hewlett Packard 350 SRX in July 1987 and made our first presentation of the real-time analysis and visualization of 3D mechanisms at an international congress in Seville two months later. Target applications included robotics, vehicles, mechanisms, spaceship manoeuvres, teleoperator training, astronaut motion, and ergonomics inside vehicles.