1. The paper presents a new method of defining constraints between deformable objects in physical simulation, called “Point Cloud Glue”.
2. Existing methods of defining constraints that use Barycentric coordinates are simple, but limited, and unstable unless weights are all non-negative.
3. Point Cloud Glue works by computing the nearest-fit rigid transform (the orthogonal Procrustes transform) to the particle positions.
4a. This method, unlike previous methods, allows us to differentiate through the minimization in numerically stable manner, allowing the method to be used in a greater variety of constrained dynamics systems.
4b. Demonstrated in the movie Avatar, where branches of trees are simulated as tetrahedral meshes and glued together with Point Cloud Glue.
5. Didn’t find anything except links to the paper.