Accurate Real-Time Complex Cutting In Finite Element Modeling

This paper presents a real-time method for enacting accurate cutting of thin materials while retaining the physical accuracy of the underlying deformable material model. Our primary contribution is to offer a flexible real-time solution that can allow accurate cuts, re-cuts, curved cuts, sectioning (cutting out) on a deformable FEM model. Further contributions include improved handling of mesh element resizing after cutting for increasing material stability while balancing such resizing against real-time requirements. In this manner, we can represent precise cut incision (which may be curved or irregular) by subdividing mesh elements locally (at the cut point) while negating inappropriate (ill-shaped) elements with real-time level computational overhead and so avoiding modeling instabilities efficiently. We present the results of our solution that show the accuracy of the cutting method and illustrate timings for our optimised approach demonstrating its real-time qualities.