8.3.3 Collision detection

One of the greatest challenges in building a physics engine is handling collisions between bodies. Standard laws of motion from physics or engineering usually do not take into account such interactions. Therefore, specialized algorithms are used to detect when such collisions occur and respond appropriately. Collision detection methods and corresponding software are plentiful because of widespread needs in computer graphics simulations and video games, and also for motion planning of robots.

Figure 8.10: Three interesting cases for collision detection (these are 2D examples). The last case may or not cause collision, depending on the model.