[ODE] how to glue bodies together ?

[XFred]

On Thu, 29 Jan 2004 13:41:09 -0000
"Brian Clarkson" <brianclarkson at btconnect.com> wrote:

> I think the detection of break forces on joints is very much part of body
> physics. Just as much
> as collision. A very efficient fixed joint would be very useful for this.
> There are several benefits
> to breakable joints for sub bodies which need to break apart.
> 
> 1. The centre of mass of each sub body (child) automatically combines with
> it siblings to produce
>    the correct centre of mass for the family. You don't have to calculate
> it.
> 2. When a child leaves the family ( joint breaks ) its mass is automatically
> subtracted from the remaining family
>    This child will then behave correctly as it progresses alone. The
> remaining family will automatically see its
>    combined centre of mass adjusted accordingly and it will behave correctly
> as it progress.
> 3. All the above requires no additional application code. It just happens.
> 
> All this is for free once you implement Roel's breakable joints. I did and
> it has introduced another level of realism
> to our RTS.
> 
> 
> Brian..

Thank you for your advices Brian,
anyway, I think you'll see why we don't implement breaking joints right now as we'll release a version of our robotic framework soon (mid-february).
I'll notice the list to get some feedback on the UI, the visual programming interface and the part I'm focusing on : a prober that tries to guess all the capabilities of a robot (very simple for now).
The other parts of the framework (simulation, portability of the generated code, etc ...) maybe interesting too ;) .
I hope I'll be able to find some people here interested enougth in the project to contribute .

See you soon ;)

-- 
Fred D.