3D collision-detection middleware

Question

(I've split this question into two. For 2D, see: http://gamedev.stackexchange.com/questions/3431/)

Are there any recommendable middleware available for 3D collision detection?

I believe I've heard Bullet has a pretty good 3D collision detection that can be used without the physics engine. I'd like to hear if people have any experiences on Bullet or other libraries for 3D collision detection specifically.

Answer 1

If you just want collision detection, and not a full physics engine, it might be worth taking a look at OPCODE - http://www.codercorner.com/Opcode.htm (although it is a bit old now, there may be newer/better things out there?)

Answer 2

Bullet has a very well-working collision pipeline. They support various broadphases (sweep n prune, hashed broadphase, 3-axis sweep, etc) and have narrowphase with optimized bv-tree's. I've worked professionally with bullet for over a year and although their performance is not as good as havok(which I've worked with for over two years), it's free and the source code is maintained and enhanced often.

It should be fairly easy to look into their source-code to figure out how to only use their collision detection.

PhysX also has a collision-detection network but I haven't relly looked into it. Havok is a solution that costs a lot of money and I don't think anyone can afford retrieving their source-code unless you're a professional developer. They do have free-to-use libraries but then you can't modify it.

Answer 3

Open Dynamics Engine is another semi-popular open source middleware solution for physics and collision.

http://www.ode.org/

PhysX is another popular collision/physics middleware from NVIDIA. Binary available.

http://developer.nvidia.com/object/physx.html

Last but not least is Havok which is the gold standard of collision/physics. Binary available.

http://www.havok.com/