Abstract: To synthesize the response for a virtual contact resulting from rigid object acting on a deformable body, a method is used whereby the surface of the virtual deformable body carries a finite set of responses corresponding to actual responses between the object and the body which are calculated or measured in a preprocessing step and stored into memory. The virtual deformable body is also meshed into polygons. When an object force interacts with the deformable body, an initial point of contact is made. The polygon that includes the point of contact is identified and is termed the active polygon. The relative position of the point of contact within the currently active polygon is determined. Response data associated with the currently active-polygon is obtained from the memory and the response is synthesized for any point on the surface of the rigid object. The synthesis includes the reproduction of friction. Frictionless contacts are synthesized as a special case when a presliding distance is set to zero.