[ODE] Re: Simulating Wheels

[Adam Moravanszky [Novodex]]

> About the realistic car sims - if it's not an original idea, how come
> nobody's done it?


It may have something to do with completely realistic simulation being
difficult to do in real time, at least until recently.  Plus the
aforementioned lack of data.  The fact that a single bad piece of data or an
inappropriately simulated element can significantly screw up the resulting
handling doesn't help either.

But why start with something relatively complicated like a car?  Why not
make a completely realistic simulation of something simple, like a bicycle
or an old moped?  The advantage is that its significantly easier to obtain
all the measurements needed for something like that than for a car, because
you can completely take them apart and weigh all the pieces (including the
body parts of the rider) with little effort.  Maybe its less interesting but
I still haven't seen anyone implement this.  Another challenge is to model a
mechanical clock that ends up being able to accurately tell time.

--  Adam