[ODE] LMotor

[Jan Kratochvil]

> Apparently at some point (Nov 28, 2004) someone (Nate) thought someone
> else (Jan) had contributed a LMotor implementation to ODE.  Where is
> it? I can't find it anywhere in CVS or anything more about it in the
> ODE mailing list. (I can't even find the original messge from Jan,
> oddly...)

Thats strange :) but you can find it here 
http://honza.jikos.cz/lmotor.patch.bz2 it is up to date patch to current 
cvs. (I hope :) ) 

 > 
> I'm supprised more people aren't clamoring for this because my
> understanding of it's function would be very handy.  Am I correct in
> the following assumption:?  that the best reason to use a linear motor
> instead of just "Mr Basic Physics"
>   force = (new_velocity - old_velocity) * mass / time
> is that like an aMotor, a lMotor would be able to "look ahead one
> timestep" and calculate a force that would take into account the other
> forces acting on the object. If so, this would simplify many things...

yes lmotor do the same as amotor but not for "torque" but "force". It uses 
limots internaly so it should be already well tested. 
I am using lmotor to control speed of spaceship in heading direction. I 
am controlling all three axes (perpendicular of course :) ) 2 of them have 
desired speed set to 0 and third is the one i am controlling and it 
behaves well. (i tested it also to control movement of two bodie and it 
did what i expected it to do)

Btw can this patch be added at least to contributions? I am not feeling 
comfortable using ode not compatible with "cvs ode" :)

> 
Best regards
Jan Kratochvil