hvrbyte
Heliman
Location: Vancouver, BC
| w.pasman,
you're right, physics is what makes a simulator, not graphics. Graphics is easy (well relatively anyway), which is why some of the first development builds looked good from the start (mostly due to the fact that slow is actually a pretty good graphics programmer).
For physics, we've pretty much settled on using ODE (Open Dynamics Engine - ode.org) since it seems to provide most of the rigid body dynamics functionality we need. In fact, we know of at least one R/C heli simulator that already uses it.
Using ODE is not the easiest thing, and it is turning into quite a learning experience for me (I'm an enterprise client/server developer). I lacked (and still do) quite a bit of the underlying knowledge about how this stuff all works. At times it feels like paddling up Niagra Falls with a teaspoon.
I've scanned the appendix you linked to, and that's some impressive work you did there. I need to sit down with a cup of coffee and study it in depth, but it looks like it is going to be immensely helpfull.
Some of the code you have on the site looks a lot like the PPM decoding code I did for Windows (which in turn was based on the stuff slow did for OSX).
What kind of license is the code on your site under? We are tring to stay away from anything that uses the GPL, and prefer a BSD style license, or an LGPL license for any libraries. |
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