PhysHand: A Hand Simulation Model with Physiological Geometry, Physical Deformation, and Accurate Contact Handling

TL;DR

PhysHand is a comprehensive hand simulation model that improves realism in virtual interactions by combining physiological geometry, physics-based deformation, and precise contact handling, leading to more authentic hand-object interactions.

Contribution

It introduces a layered mesh geometry, a constraint-based dynamics framework, and an SDF-based contact method, advancing realism and accuracy in hand simulation for virtual environments.

Findings

Enhanced deformation realism and contact accuracy

Significant reduction in penetration depth and frequency

Outperforms existing methods in physical plausibility

Abstract

In virtual Hand-Object Interaction (HOI) scenarios, the authenticity of the hand's deformation is important to immersive experience, such as natural manipulation or tactile feedback. Unrealistic deformation arises from simplified hand geometry, neglect of the different physics attributes of the hand, and penetration due to imprecise contact handling. To address these problems, we propose PhysHand, a novel hand simulation model, which enhances the realism of deformation in HOI. First, we construct a physiologically plausible geometry, a layered mesh with a "skin-flesh-skeleton" structure. Second, to satisfy the distinct physics features of different soft tissues, a constraint-based dynamics framework is adopted with carefully designed layer-corresponding constraints to maintain flesh attached and skin smooth. Finally, we employ an SDF-based method to eliminate the penetration caused by contacts and enhance its accuracy by introducing a novel multi-resolution querying strategy. Extensive experiments have been conducted to demonstrate the outstanding performance of PhysHand in calculating deformations and handling contacts. Compared to existing methods, our PhysHand: 1) can compute both physiologically and physically plausible deformation; 2) significantly reduces the depth and count of penetration in HOI.