Abstract: We introduce multiresolution collision detection, a novel approach for fast and exact interference detection on continuous level-of-detail (LOD) representations of arbitrary triangle meshes undergoing rigid-body motion. A new algorithm, active bounding tree (AB-Tree), is presented to accelerate interference queries of three-dimensional models, which dynamically change LODs at runtime. The idea behind the approach is to selectively adjust the LODs of objects in a virtual environment to maintain an overall low complexity of collision detection, therefore guaranteeing an interactive frame rate. On the one hand the utilization of computational resources is maximized; on the other hand a consistent and realistic virtual environment is presented to the user. We also introduce a LOD selection method for collision detection. Our implementation of the collision-detection algorithm demonstrates significant performance improvement over existing algorithms for static LOD meshes. The complexity of the algorithm is analyzed and proved. Measurements are taken to compare with the analytical results of three sample models and strong agreements are achieved.