[ODE] Collision CSG?

[gl]

> Here's an idea that might be interesting to add to the collision toolbox:
> primitive-mapped heightfields.  For example, you have a mesh of an arm
> that kinda halfway looks like a capped cylinder but not really.  So you
> take a capped cylinder, make a function to map it's surface to 2D (i.e.
> the long axis is x and degrees around it is y).  Then you could specify
> heights in terms of 0 = directly on the surface of the primitive, negative
> means that many units towards the center, and positive means that many
> units away from the center (all in body coordinates if I'm clear as mud).
> Nothing would happen until an object collided with the surface of the
> primitive, then the collision system would query the heightfield at that
> x,y coordinate (or you could just do it yourself).  This should be a lot
> faster than generic mesh collisions while still being able to define the
> exact same shape in many instances.

That's pretty darn clever.  You could sample the mesh via raycasting to get
the heightfield data from it.  Anybody want to try it? : ).
--
gl