A volumetric bounding volume hierarchy for collision detection

Existing BVHs are restricted to surface-based hierarchical decomposition, which lose the inner space properties of object and provide little guidance for the collision avoidance. We present a novel, volume-based BVH - inner space bounding volume hierarchy (ISBVH). Compared with the surface-based BVH, ISBVH can enclose the boundary surface and inner space simultaneously in any order. Due to approximating the object in volume manner, more significant penetration features such as potential penetration regions, penetration points and penetration depth can be identified in the phase of collision detection without any additional computation cost. These features are extremely necessary for guiding quick and reasonable collision avoidance.