Abstract

This paper proposes the development of a semi-qualitative simulation framework for virtual environments. Its purpose is to simulate the behavior of complex devices and their interaction with virtual humans. We present an object-oriented semi-qualitative language to model such system. While our use of hierarchical finite state machines allows for the development of complex components, we retain the expressiveness of the compositional modeling used in qualitative physics. Using high level primitives, a physics-based model can directly animate 3D geometry. Participating agents can operate, assemble or disassemble a device. They can also access qualitative models and simulation histories to reason about its behavior. A potential application of this framework is in maintenance simulation. Other applications include virtual laboratories and virtual prototyping. Contents 1 Introduction 1 1.1 Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 1.1.1 Modeling . . . . . . . . ...

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