[ODE] Rigid Body Dynamics Dissertation

[Roel van Dijk]

On Thursday 19 September 2002 01:28, Damiano Iannetta wrote:
> You guys are the experts here, would ODE be a good choice for this? I know
> it does collision detection aswell - is there a way to override this and
> use my own routines (I still have to provide some work I did myself)
That is certainly possible! From the documentation 
(http://opende.sourceforge.net/ode-latest-userguide.html#ref26):
"Note that the built-in collision functions do not have to be used - other 
collision detection libraries can be used as long as they provide the right 
kinds of contact point information."
You just have to generate contact points when there is a collision.

Also, sinds your simulation whill probably contain a lot of objects I 
recommend using the dWorldStepFast1 function. These will give a huge speed 
boost over the normal dWordStep function. I managed to stack 400 boxes before 
the simulation got sloppy. You could also use techniques such as the 
disabling of body's when there linear and angular velocities are below a 
certain treshold for a certain time.

Anyway, there is a lot of information in the docs 
(http://opende.sourceforge.net/ode-latest-userguide.html).
Good luck!