[ODE] Adding a good "feel" to a haptics device

[W.J. van der Laan]

> 	 But the problem is the force interaction. The solution I came up with
> was to send a force relative to the penetration depth and the normal
> vector, but this approach works ok only when interacting with the floor.

This is the right approach, to use geoms to detect collision; but the
objects get pushed to hard. A possibility would be to not create joints on
collision with the "haptic" geoms, but apply forces manually
to the object like you do to the haptic device. This way, you have total
control over the force applied to the object and they will not accelerate
into hyperspace :D

Another (better?) method would be to give the haptic geoms a dynamics
body, on which forces are applied instead of setting their position
directly. See the recent thread about attaching bodies to an animation.
The idea is you attach the objects to your haptic device with a spring.
(IE apply a force linearly dependent on the difference between measured
position and current world position) The problem with this method is that
the user might feel less 'in control' this way.

Wladimir