Interactive simulation of rigid body interaction with friction-induced sound generation

Acoustic simulation of friction is a particularly challenging task, because continuous (strong) contact conditions require a tight and veridical integration of the synthesis layer with the control input. This paper presents an algorithmic realization that combines recently proposed physical models of friction with the lumped modal description of resonating bodies. It is shown that the resulting nonlinear dynamical system can be discretized using a numerical technique that allows efficient and accurate simulation. Applications in the context of interactive audio-visual animation on low-cost general-purpose computers are demonstrated, and an approach to joint audio-visual synthesis is proposed that provides fine-scale synchronization and high coherence between the two modalities. The interactive animations show that the model is successful in reproducing several salient everyday sound phenomena, such as rubbing, braking, and squeaky doors.