Patent ID: 8497875

Claim:
A method for determining a minimal translation vector (MTV) between a first object and a second object represented in a CAD system, comprising the steps of: retrieving, in the CAD system, the first object and the second object; tessellating the first object and second object, by the CAD system, into respective facets; creating a bounding volume tree of facets, by the CAD system, for each of the first object and the second object; performing a greedy process on the bounding volume trees, by the CAD system, to produce a initial MTV; and performing a successive clipping process according to the bounding volume trees and the initial MTV, by the CAD system, to produce a final MTV, wherein the successive clipping process does not process at least a portion of the bounding volume tree based on facets that are outside of a clipping window; storing the final MTV in a computer readable medium.