AGX Dynamics

AGX Dynamics

 

 

Fast, scalable and accurate

 

AGX Dynamics is a professional multi-purpose physics engine for simulators, Virtual Reality (VR), engineering, large scale granular simulations and more. It consists of hundreds of C++ classes of highly optimized and portable code and is the obvious choice when you need to simulate mechanical constrained systems with frictional contacts. It is truly scalable in all senses of the word. Built upon a solid foundation of original scientific research, including discrete variational and physics based time integration methods for constrained systems, parallel high performance hybrid equation solvers and novel multi-physics models. Therefore AGX Dynamics combines accuracy with speed in a way that cannot be found in any other competing physics engine or product.

 

Why choose AGX Dynamics?

• Combines performance and accuracy for scientific, and industrial applications.
• World leading wire simulation with dynamic resolution.
• Novel hybrid solver that supports the use of both direct and iterative solver kernels.
• Integrated hydraulics simulation allowing for stiff coupling between hydraulics and mechanics simulation
• Deformable cable simulation: simulate hoses, pipes which bend, stretch and twists.
• Accurate and stable under extreme loads and mass ratios.
• Performance and accuracy: parallelism and smart splitting scheme.
• High quality contact generation including general triangle meshes.
• Deformable terrain for excavator simulation etc.
• Large scale (millions) granular body simulation with nonsmooth discrete element method.
• Rich documentation and also comes with tutorials and scripting capabilities for quick prototyping.

 

AGX Dynamics features

 

Hybrid solver scheme – Combines accuracy of a direct LCP solver and the speed of an iterative solver.
Flexible solver framework – User is free to specify solver type on contacts and constraints.
Stable for large time steps -Time integration derived from discrete variational principle.
Fast, parallel and accurate collision detection – Handles both primitives and general triangle meshes.
Wire simulations – Simulate any wire/chain/rope for your cranes, anchor handling ship or towline.
Wire interactions – The wire can collide and interact with other geometries in the simulation including friction.
Dynamic simulation – Recreate/rebuild your simulation during runtime with no limits.
Contact reduction – Fast and stable collision detection for complex objects.
Rich constraint library – Build vehicles, cranes or any other mechanical system using constraints.
Custom constraints – Missing a constraint? Develop your own from tutorials.
Platform independent – Runs on windows, Linux and Mac. Clang, gcc, Visual studio 2012-2015.
Scripting with LUA – Run and modify our demos and tutorials without recompiling.
Built in 3D Rendering – Demos and tutorials uses OpenSceneGraph for rendering in OpenGL.
Built-in support for added mass – AGX Dynamics supports the use of dressed and inhomogeneous masses and inertia tensors, which is essential in hydrodynamic modeling.
Buoyancy for general triangle meshes – Simulate objects floating in waves.
Supports input devices – Joystick and GamePad. Control your interactive simulation.
Serialization to XML/Binary format – Store your simulation on disk. Restore to a 100% deterministic simulation result.
Inject user code through events – Listen to stepping events, contacts etc.
All forces readily available during simulation – Tension in wires, contact forces, motor torques, all available during the simulation.
Multi core, parallelism from bottom up – Utilize your hardware with the multi-threaded design of AGX Dynamics.
Deformable terrain – Dig, compress, push and pile your dirt in your real time excavator simulator or deform the seabed with an anchor.
Nonsmooth discrete element method for large scale granular systems – Optimize your design with granular flow simulation.
Co-simulation with Matlab/Simulink – Connect AGX Dynamics to your existing simulations.
Co-simulation with FMI 1.0, FMI 2.0 with strong coupling* – Use the standard in co-simulation to connect AGX Dynamics to your simulation.
Particle systems – Simulate smoke or other particle effects within the same framework.

 

Uniform constraint formulation

 

No matter if it is wires, friction, motors, hydraulics or granular systems, it is all simulated within the same framework using constraints. Constraint modeling is very general in AGX Dynamics and built upon a framework of elementary and secondary constraints, and allows the user to modify, extend or create entirely new constraints. All constraints can have limits with realistic material parameters and compliance, and be driven by constraint motors.

 

Some of the constraints found in AGX Dynamics:

• Ball and socket joint
• Distance joint
• Hinge
• Universal
• Lock
• Prismatic
• Cylindrical joint

Illustration of a ball and socket joint.

 

Lumped elements modeling

 

A lumped element model with relaxed LockJoints gives you an elastic model of a cable including bending, drag and torsion.

 

Wires

 

The wire simulations in AGX Dynamics are fast enough for demanding real time simulators and yet the models have high physical accuracy and are stable under extreme loads and mass ratios. Dynamic resolution which depends on load and curvature ensures stable simulations. Wires can be tuned to represent ropes, wires and chains with realistic material parameters including bend and stretch Young’s modulus.

 

The wire contains functionality such as:

• Wires with detailed material specifications.
• Delivers realistic and stable simulations, capable of handling extreme mass ratios.
• Full interaction with the hydrodynamics model.
• Winches with speed and tension control. Winches can also be driven with the hydraulic components.
• Dynamic configuration during runtime: Wires can be cut/merged, objects can be attached/detached.
• Wires interact with other objects using collision detection.
• All forces are available during simulation for analysis.
• Dynamic and user controlled resolution allow for large scalable scenarios with kilometers of wire.
• A proven simulation component delivered in simulators around the globe

 

Cables

 

Cables is a lumped element model which can be used for simulating hoses, electric cables or even stiff steel beams. It supports:

• Full interaction with the simulation environment, including hydrodynamics.
• Young’s modulus in stretch, bend and torsion
• Fixed resolution
• Cable can be attached to rigid bodies at any point along its length.
• Efficient and smart routing algorithm
• Initial state can be any configuration. For example a spring or just a straight line.

 

Vehicle simulators

 

When simulating complex heavy vehicles, accuracy and performance are important. AGX Dynamics direct solver delivers the speed and fidelity that you need to deliver world leading training simulators. The Power Train API to simulate motors, clutches, gear-boxes together with deformable terrain allow for complex and realistic vehicle models.
 

AGX Dynamics consists of everything you need to develop your training simulator:

• Accurate direct solver for heavy vehicles such as excavators, cranes, wheel loaders etc.
• Deformable terrain module. Dig, compress, push and pile your dirt in your real time excavator simulator or deform the seabed with an anchor.
• Fast and accurate contact generation
• Flexible and configurable frictional system for exact modelling of wheel/ground interaction.
• Fast iterative solvers for large scale contact systems. (Rocks, logs, …)
• Power Train API with clutches, motors, gears.
• Hydraulics API.
• Re-use your CAD models.

 

Our role, your trust

• Algoryx remains Software Vendor and Service Provider
• We do NOT sell simulators
• We sell enabling technology for simulators
• We provide service
• We do not compete with our simulator customers
• We give fair access to core technologies to all customers

 

Digger simulation in AGX Dynamics with deformable terrain.

 

CAD/Engineering

 

AGX Dynamics is the first real time physics engine integrated into a professional CAD environment. With Dynamics for SpaceClaim, AGX Dynamics has proven to be accurate enough to fit into the workflow of the modern engineering toolbox.

 

CAD to simulator

 

AGX Dynamics pipeline from CAD to training simulator.

AGX Dynamics is very strong in delivering dynamics simulations to simulators. By being part of the process from CAD to training simulator, models can be reused throughout the process. Through the serialization mechanism in AGX Dynamics, a CAD model in Dynamics for SpaceClaim with dynamic properties such as joints, motors, physical materials, mass, inertia tensor etc. can be instantly exported into a run-time environment.

 

Simulation in product development

 

Simulation is an important part of the whole product development process. By allowing more people to do early prototype simulations, early design errors are reduced. With AGX Dynamics integrated into your CAD environment, you can run mechanical simulations on your design, all the way from prototype stage through system engineering to marketing and training simulators.

 

Simulation driven product development.

 

FMI

 

The FMI standard allows different simulation tools to be used together in a heterogeneous simulation environment with a common interface.

AGX Dynamics supports FMI export, using our FMI generator tool, which automatically generates a model description XML file and builds the FMU archive.
We support co-simulation, with either version 1.0 or 2.0 of the FMI standard.

 

AGXUnity

 

Unity3D is one of the world’s leading platforms for game development. It is also used for serious gaming, virtual reality and professional simulator development. If Unity3D is your preferred development platform and you need a professional physics engine, with industry grade simulation quality, then AGXUnity is your solution. AGXUnity comes with full source code, it integrates AGX Dynamics and Unity3D into a productive environment for developing simulators and simulation solutions. With the graphics quality and performance of Unity and the stability and exactness of our dynamics solution you will be able to develop realistic simulations using the real physical properties.
 

 

Modelling wires in Unity3D

 

Adding and editing shapes.

 

Creating and configuring constraints.

 

Modeling and editing geometry properties.

 

Granular

 

Large scale granular simulation

 

When handling materials such as iron pellets, medicine pills, rocks or other bulk materials, simulations can be a powerful tool for optimizing and increasing understanding of the process. AGX Dynamics offers powerful solutions for simulating granular and bulk material. Parallel computing and optimized data structures allow for fast and scalable simulations with millions of particles even on conventional desktop computers.

 

Features for simulating granular materials with AGX Dynamics:

• A novel non-smooth DEM model for granular bodies with Hertzian contacts, dry friction, rolling resistance and adhesion.
• Very fast due to extensive CPU parallelization.
• Scalable simulations for large systems containing millions of particles thanks to optimized data structures and computing.
• Easy modeling of conveyor system by assigning surface velocity to geometries.
• Strong dynamic coupling with other rigid multi-body systems, e.g., vehicles, conveying systems.
• Contact with external geometries of arbitrary shape, e.g., geometric primitives, trimesh, heightfield.
• Journal system for recording simulation data, using a highly efficient native binary format, and also available as standard HDF5 archive for easy export to existing post-processing tools.
• Basic post processing tools for visual analysis such as coloring particles according to velocity intervals.