[ODE] Robot simulation with ODE

[Francisco Jesús Martínez Serrano]

Greetings,

I'm trying to implement a robotics simulator (there's no code yet). And
ODE is one of the possibilities for doing the dynamics. The drawstuff
part of ODE could be used for the graphics. However, I believe there are
some issues missing from ODE that I would need to work on my own (code
would be contributed to ODE if Russ likes it).

  -Polyhedra representation in the drawstuff part. This shoudn't be a
   problem.

  -Polyhedra collision functions (which library is better? SOLID,
   V-COLLIDE, SWIFT++ etc don't give penetration depths, I believe)

  -Another integrator since (as I read in the manual), ODE's one is not
   very accurate.

  -Of course, a specification for the robot data (geometry, mass,
   inertia, joints, etc)

Anyway, maybe ODE is not my best choice and I should try some other
library like DynaMechs which, I believe, already handles poliedra pretty
well (the collision stuff remains to be done).

By the way, I apologize for the mistakes I surely made.

Any help, suggestion or info (about what is done or what could be done)
would be apreciated.

Thank you.
    
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