[ec2m] Physics engines: MathEngine/Karma/Vortex v. Havok

[Richard Reeve]

Hi,

> If anyone has anything to add to this, or has had experiences
> with other physics engines, please post to the list, as I'm
> sure that many other list members would be interested!
> 
> One last thing before I sign off - here at IC CAVE we are
> going to seek funding to develop a robust physics engine based
> upon Featherstone's method plus collision detection between
> multiple bodies (i.e. pretty similar to what Sims used, and
> more robust - but a bit more restrictive - than MathEngine,
> Havok etc.) It would be designed with evolutionary algorithms
> in mind - in particular, it would provide a very easy way to
> farm out evaluations to networked computers to parallelize the
> process. The idea is that the final system would be open source
> and free. I would be very interested to hear anyone's thoughts
> on this.

Jut a quick note, thinking of open source dynamic simulators based on
Featherstone's method - Scott McMillan's DynaMechs
http://dynamechs.sourceforge.net/ has been around for a while now and is
in the process of another major release which allows closed loops and
multiple objects being simulated - I haven't used it for a while, but I
found it quite useable at the time, and if you're looking for an open
source platform, this would be a good place to start...

Cheers,

Richard Reeve.