[ODE] How can I simulate a rope?

[Alexander Bisler]

david at ctac.es wrote:
> Hello. I need to simulate a cable from which a robot will hang. I know I've to use a catenary curve, but how can I do this?. Can any of you help me?

Hi David,
I'm in the process of simulating a cable using ODE. Here's how I proceeded so far:
    The cable is divided into n segments. I use capped cylinders as geoms.
To connect them, I tried different joints (ball&socket, universal & hinge2).
Because the cable needs to have a material attribute which describes the 
maximum angle it can be bend, I use hinge2 now. With the parameters 
dParamLoStop and dParamHiStop I can control how far the cable can be bend.
    Using an AMotor dry friction in the joints is modelled (as described in the
documentation). To slow down the cable, while it's hanging down and swinging, 
the velocity of the bodies is taken each frame, a negative friction of it is 
added to the body (again, as described in the documentation :)
    The result looks quite nice (without having too much trouble).

I hope, that answers some of your questions.

Best regards
Alex