Editing Collision detection (section)

===Bounding volumes===
A quick way to potentially avoid a needless expensive computation is to check if the bounding volume enclosing the two objects intersect. If they don't, there is no need to check the actual objects. However, if the [[bounding volume|bounding volumes]] do intersect, the more expensive computation has to be performed. In order for the bounding-volume test to add value, two properties need to be balanced: a) the cost of intersecting the bounding volume needs to be low and b) the bounding volume needs to be tight enough so that the number of 'false positive' intersection will be low. A false positive intersection in this case means that the bounding volumes intersect but the actual objects do not. Different bounding volume types offer different trade-offs for these properties.

[[Minimum bounding box#Axis-aligned minimum bounding box|Axis-Align Bounding Boxes (AABB)]] and [[cuboid]]s are popular due to their simplicity and quick intersection tests.<ref>{{cite web |author=Caldwell, Douglas R. |date=2005-08-29 |title=Unlocking the Mysteries of the Bounding Box |url=http://www.stonybrook.edu/libmap/coordinates/seriesa/no2/a2.htm |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120728180104/http://www.stonybrook.edu/libmap/coordinates/seriesa/no2/a2.htm |archive-date=2012-07-28 |access-date=2014-05-13 |publisher=US Army Engineer Research & Development Center, Topographic Engineering Center, Research Division, Information Generation and Management Branch}}</ref>  Bounding volumes such as [[Minimum bounding box#Arbitrarily oriented minimum bounding box|Oriented Bounding Boxes (OBB)]], [[Bounding volume#Common types|K-DOPs]] and Convex-hulls offer a tighter approximation of the enclosed shape at the expense of a more elaborate intersection test.

Bounding volumes are typically used in the early (pruning) stage of collision detection, so that only objects with overlapping bounding volumes need be compared in detail.<ref>{{cite journal |author=Gan B, Dong Q |date=2022 |title=An improved optimal algorithm for collision detection of hybrid hierarchical bounding box |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/348937861 |journal=Evolutionary Intelligence |volume=15 |issue=4 |pages=2515–2527 |doi=10.1007/s12065-020-00559-6}}</ref> Computing collision or overlap between bounding volumes involves additional computations, therefore, in order for it to beneficial we need the bounding volume to be relatively tight and the computation overhead to due the collisions to be low.