Dynamical simulation
Open-knowledge reference entry
Dynamical simulation, in computational physics, is the simulation of systems of objects that are free to move, usually in three dimensions according to Newton's laws of classical dynamics, or approximations thereof. Dynamical simulation is used in computer animation to assist animators to produce realistic motion, in industrial design (for example to simulate crashes as an early step in crash testing), and in video games. Body movement is calculated using time integration methods.
Physics engines
In computer science, a program called a physics engine is used to model the behaviors of objects in space. These engines allow simulation of the way bodies of many types are affected by a variety of physical stimuli. They are also used to create dynamical simulations without having to know anything about physics. Physics engines are used throughout the video game and movie industry, but not all physics engines are alike. They are generally broken into real-time and the high precision, but these are not the only options. Most real-time physics engines are inaccurate and yield only the barest approximation of the real world, whereas most high-precision engines are far too slow for use in everyday applications.
To understand how these Physics engines are built, a basic understanding of physics is required.
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This entry incorporates text from “Dynamical simulation” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.