Fast and Accurate Finite Element Method for Deformation Animations

We present a matrix clustering method for speeding up finite element computations for non-rigid object animation. The method increases the efficiency of computing deformation dynamics through a compression scheme that decomposes the large force-displacement matrix into clusters of smaller matrices in order to facilitate the run-time computations of linear finite element based deformations. The deformation results are compared with the results produced by using modal analysis method and the standard linear finite element algorithm. We demonstrate that the proposed method is stable with comparative computational speed to modal analysis method. A hierarchical skeleton-based system is also implemented to add constraints to material nodes. Thus, real-time deformations can be directed by motion captured data sets or key-framed animations.