Awesome Collision Detection

A curated list of collision detection open resources

Table of Contents

• Libraries
• Papers
• Books
• Articles
• Other Awesome Lists
• Contributing

Libraries

Active

⚠️ The following table is not complete. Please feel free to report if you find something incorrect or missing.

Name	Shapes	Features	Languages	Licenses	Code	Popularity
BEPUphysics 1	(todo)	(todo)	C#, .NET	Apache v2	github
Bullet	(todo)	(todo)	C++, Python	Zlib	github
collision-rs	(todo)	(todo)	Rust	Apache-2.0	github
FCL	(todo)	(todo)	C++	BSD-3-Clause	github
JitterPhysics	(todo)	(todo)	C#, .NET	MIT	github
libccd	(todo)	(todo)	C	BSD-3-Clause	github
ncollide	(todo)	(todo)	Rust	BSD-3-Clause	github
ODE	(todo)	(todo)	C++, Python	LGPL-2.1 or BSD-3-Clause	bitbucket
ReactPhysics3d	(todo)	(todo)	C++	Zlib	github
tinyc2	(todo)	2d	C/C++	Zlib	github
qu3e	(todo)	(todo)	C++	Zlib	github

Some libraries (e.g., ODE and Bullet) are physics engines that contain collision detection features, but they can be used just as collision detection libraries.

Inactive

• ColDet - 3D Collision Detection.
• GIMPACT - Tools for geometry processing and collision detection.
• OPCODE - Optimized Collision Detection.
• OZCollide [github]
• SOLID - Collision detection of 3D objects undergoing rigid motion and deformation.

Mesh Processing

• bounding-mesh (github ) - Implementation of the bounding mesh and bounding convex decomposition algorithms for single-sided mesh approximation.
• cinolib (github ) - A generic programming header only C++ library for processing polygonal and polyhedral meshes.
• libigl (github ) - A simple C++ geometry processing library.

Papers

Triangle-triangle Test

• A faster triangle-to-triangle intersection test algorithm (2013), L.-Y. Wei.
• Efficient triangle-triangle intersection test for OBB-based collision detection (2009), J.-W. Chang et al. [pdf]
• A fast triangle to triangle intersection test for collision detection (2006), O. Tropp et al. [pdf, code]
  • A failure case was reported in Stack Overflow.
• Faster Triangle-Triangle Intersection Tests (2006), O. Devillers et al. [pdf, code]
• A Fast Triangle-Triangle Intersecion Test (1997), T. Muller. [pdf, code]

Mesh Collision

• Robust contact generation for robot simulation with unstructured meshes (2013), K. Hauser. [pdf, web]

Penetration Depth Computation

• PolyDepth: Real-time Penetration Depth Computation using Iterative Contact-Space Projection (2012), C. Je et al. [pdf]

Proximity Query / Signed Distance Field

• Hierarchical hp-Adaptive Signed Distance Fields (2016), D. Koschier et al. [pdf, video]
• Voxblox: Building 3d signed distance fields for planning (2016), H Oleynikova et al. [pdf, code]
• Signed distance fields for polygon soup meshes (2014), H. Xu and Jernej Barbic. [pdf]
• Fast Proximity Queries with Swept Sphere Volumes (1999), E. Larsen et al. [pdf, web]

Continuous Collision Detection

• Hierarchical and Controlled Advancement for Continuous Collision Detection of Rigid and Articulated Models (2013), M. Tang et al. [pdf, web]
• Efficient Geometrically Exact Continuous Collision Detection (2012), T. Brochu et al. [pdf, video]
• C2A: Controlled Conservative Advancement for Continuous Collision Detection of Polygonal Models (2009), M. Tang et al. [pdf]
• Continuous Collision Detection for Articulated Models using Taylor Models and Temporal Culling (2007), X. Zhang et al. [pdf, web]
• Interactive continuous collision detection for non-convex polyhedra (2006), X. Zhang et al. [pdf, web]

Nearest Neighbor

• Faster cover tree (2015), M. Izbicki et al. [pdf, code]
• Fast Approximate Nearest Neighbors with Automatic Algorithm Configuration (2009), M. Muja and D. Lowe. [pdf, code]
• Cover Tree for Nearest Neighbor (2006), A. Beygelzimer et al. [pdf, web, code]

Comprehensive Collision Detection Library

• FCL: A General Purpose Library for Collision and Proximity Queries (2012), J. Pan et al. [pdf, code]

Survey

• Collision Detection: A Survey (2007), S. Kockara et al. [pdf]
• 3D collision detection: a survey (2001), P. Jiménez et al. [pdf]

Books

• Real-Time Collision Detection, CRC Press 2004 (amazon)
• Collision Detection in Interactive 3D Environments, CRC Press 2003 (amazon)

Articles

Overview & Tutorial

• Video Game Physics Tutorial - Part II: Collision Detection for Solid Objects by Nilson Souto
• GPU Rigid Body Simulation (GDC 2013), Erwin Coumans
• OpenCL accelerated rigid body and collision detection (RSS 2011), Erwin Coumans
• Contact Generation (GDC 2010), Erwin Coumans

Benchmark

• spatial-collision-datastructures - Benchmark of various spatial data structures for collision detection.

Narrow-phase

• Algorithm table for narrowphase algorithms
• 3D Collision detection by Miguel Casillas
• Collision Detection (code) by Jeff Thompson - This book explains the algorithms behind those collisions using basic shapes like circles, rectangles, and lines so you can implement them into your own projects.
• Note: The Gibert-Jonson-Keerthi algorithm by Christer Ericson

Space Partitioning

• Benchmark of various spatial data structures for collision detection
• Bounding volume heirarchy
  • Bounding Volume Hierarchy Optimization through Agglomerative Treelet Restructuring (paper, code) by Leonardo R. Domingues and Helio Pedrini.
  • Dynamic AABB Tree by Randy Gaul
  • Efficient BVH Construction via Approximate Agglomerative Clustering by Yan Gu et al. (pdf)
  • Octree vs BVH by Thomas Diewald

Other Awesome Lists

• Awesome Robotics Libraries - This is a list of various libraris and software for robotics. It's also attempting to provide some comparisons for selected libraries and software.

Contributing

Contributions are very welcome! Please read the contribution guidelines first. Also, please feel free to report any error.

License