# Locking-free Simulation of Isometric Thin Plates

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/1911.05204 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/1911.05204/

## Key facts

- Cited by 1 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 12 Nov 2019.

## Built on by (most cited first, 1 of 1)

- [SpringTime: Learning Simulatable Models of Cloth with Spatially-varying Constitutive Properties](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.21288/) (2025)

## Abstract (arXiv)

To efficiently simulate very thin, inextensible materials like cloth or paper, it is tempting to replace force-based thin-plate dynamics with hard isometry constraints. Unfortunately, naive formulations of the constraints induce membrane locking---artificial stiffening of bending modes due to the inability of discrete kinematics to reproduce exact isometries. We propose a simple set of meshless isometry constraints, based on moving-least-squares averaging of the strain tensor, which do not lock, and which can be easily incorporated into standard constrained Lagrangian dynamics integration.