An improved CPU–GPU parallel framework for real-time interactive cutting simulation of deformable objects

Simulation performance is crucial for real-time interactive cutting simulation of deformable objects, especially when haptic devices are used. In this paper, changes are made to a previous software framework by moving deformation equation solving and calculation of positions and normals of surface mesh vertices from CPU to GPU. A new normal calculation method based on deformation gradients is also proposed. Although these changes increase deformation speed, they actually decrease cutting speed due to increased amount of GPU data structures that need to be updated after cutting. Therefore novel CPU–GPU synchronization mechanisms are proposed to counter the negative impact of these changes to cutting speed. Simulation tests show that our synchronization mechanisms almost make up for the cutting speed loss, and the overall simulation speed is increased by 71.3% to 352.4% in non-cutting periods and 20.8% to 64.6% in cutting periods over the previous software framework.