[ODE] Ball and Socket or (Universal +Hinge)

[Jaap Stolk]

On 4/11/06, Brian Dexter Allen <chokma at gmail.com> wrote:
> Here's a code snippet from my project, hope it can help.  It's been
> working alright in practice, but I'm no expert.  Assumes +y up, +z
> forward and a right-handed system.
>
>         <code>

Thanks a lot for sharing the code. but it looks like you are only
using an aMotor with 2 axes, as far as I know, the problems with euler
angles only start when the 3rd ax is added.

I'm changing my code to use a universal joint and an extra hinge to
control rotation. there is no real disadvantage to this, except maybe
a bit more complex system that would take a little longer to simulate,
but I don't need real-time anyway.

ODE looks like the perfect piece of software for simulating controlled
humanoids. A few things on my list:
- adding some basic self-balancing.
- filtering out the collisions between directly attached parts, to
give the knees, etc. a larger range of motion.
- adding joint limits (just in case my simulated muscles can't handle
the situation)
- switching to triangle (mesh) for the geoms.

Jaap.