Abstract: Since the time of Newton, multi-rigid body dynamics has proven to be a powerful paradigm for modeling and simulating many phenomena from micro- to mega-scales. But one phenomenon has bedeviled such computational simulations for over three decades. It has been unknown how to compute interaction forces between contacting bodies with arbitrary geometries quickly and robustly. When these interaction forces are computed inaccurately, physical artifacts like objects “popping through” other objects and bodies appearing to vibrate perpetually can be observed. My research has helped addressed this deficiency by introducing a hydrostatic contact model (that is, a model based on the equilibrium of liquids) that computes contact forces between bodies with ubiquitous triangle mesh geometries. The beauty of the hydrostatic model is that it does not require complementarity constraints to compute surface deformations between contacting bodies, which is a computationally intensive process. I’ll present videos illustrating my approach applied to various scenarios, including robotic manipulation.