[ODE] interlinked wheels - imagine gears

[Tobias Zimmer]

The wheels are not contacting the ground, they are parts of the excenter 
above the
vehicle which contacts the ground. They are attached to a platform and 
then each
of the wheelsets is connected to a platform below. The two platforms are 
touching
the ground alternating. So the purpose of the wheels really is the the 
rotation and thus
the activation of the platforms below. They can't belong to the same 
wheel, because
they move counterwise!

thanks,
Tobias

Jon Watte (ODE) schrieb:
>
>
> Tobias Zimmer wrote:
>> Now the question: How could I interlink the wheels like gears
>> giving them the same velocity in every timestep? My only idea
>> is to set FMax to 0 at each timestep, but would they work than
>> anyways?
>>   
>
> Are the wheels contacting ground? If so, their speed will be dependent 
> on the rate of travel over ground (and will vary when the vehicle 
> turns). If they're not contacting ground, then your first order of 
> business is probably to put them on ground (or rails), if that's where 
> you want to eventually end up. The simulation of wheel/support contact 
> is a lot more important than the simulation of the suspension and 
> chassis, if you want a good locomotion simulation.
>
> The other way to lock the wheel velocities is to make each wheel pair 
> a single body, with two geoms (one per wheel). This means that the 
> wheel geoms always spin with the single body, and thus by definition 
> at the same rate.
>
> Cheers,
>
>          / h+
>
>