Bullet Physics Library / News: Recent posts

Please visit http://bullet.googlecode.com for Bullet releases and source repository and related links.

We migrate to Google Code, which mirrors this project http://code.google.com/p/bullet/

+ Improved COLLADA Physics export snapshot from any Bullet btDynamicsWorld. Saving the physics world into .dae (xml textfile) can be useful for debugging etc.
+ Initial version for Character Control Demo
+ Bugfixes in ConvexCast support against the world.
+ Added btCapsuleShapeX/Z
+ Added btTypedUserInfo, useful for serialization
+ Add support for 16 and 32-bit indices for SPU / BulletMultiThreaded version.
+ Added Stan Melax Convex Hull utility library in Extras/ConvexHull. This is useful to render non-polyhedral convex objects, and to simplify convex polyhedra.
+ Add support for batch raycasting on SPU / BulletMultiThreaded... read more

Bullet Continuous Collision Detection and Physics Library released. Changelog:

2007 Dec 16
- Added btRigidBodyConstructionInfo, to make it easier to set individual setting (and leave other untouched) during rigid body construction.
Thanks Vangelis Kokkevis for pointing this out.
- Fixed memoryleak in the ConstraintDemo and Raytracer demo.
- Fixed issue with clearing forces/gravity at the end of the stepSimulation, instead of during internalSingleStepSimulation.
Thanks chunky for pointing this out: http://www.bulletphysics.com/Bullet/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=1780
- Disabled additional damping in rigid body by default, but enable it in most demos. Set btRigidBodyConstructionInfo m_additionalDamping to true to enable this.
- Removed obsolete QUICKPROF BEGIN/END_PROFILE, and enabled BT_PROFILE. Profiling is enabled by default (see Bullet/Demos/OpenGL/DemoApplication.cpp how to use this).
User can switch off profiling by enabling define BT_NO_PROFILE in Bullet/src/btQuickprof.h.... read more

- added all-in-one demo framework using glui, allowing all demos to run within one executable (thanks Erin Catto)
- Allow user to pass in their own memory (stack and pool) allocators, through collisionConfiguration
- All memory allocations go through btAlignedAlloc/btAlignedFree. User can override this to verify memory leaks
- Fixed various memory leaks in SDK. Some demos still need memory cleanup.
- fix for one of the constructors of btHingeConstraint
Thanks Marcus Hennix... read more

- added Hashed Overlapping Pair Cache, recommended by Pierre Terdiman. It works like a charm, thanks Pierre and Erin Catto
- modified some margins inside btBoxShape, btCylinderShape and btSphereShape
- added cone debug rendering (for cones with x, y and z up-axis)
- added improvements for optional Extra/quickstep, thanks to Remotion
- some performance improvements for Bullet constraint solver
- moved 'refreshContactPoints' into the collision detector, instead of constraint solver
- cleanup of many warnings, thanks Enrico
- Libspe2 support of BulletMultiThreaded collision detection for Cell SPUs on IBM CellBlade and PS3 Linux. Thanks Minh Cuong Tran, Benjamin Hoeferlin, Frederick Roth and Martina Huellmann from IBM Extreme Blue (http://www-913.ibm.com/employment/us/extremeblue/)

New in 2.62:
- Fix for restitution
- fix for endian swap in BVH serialization
Other previous changes:
- Improved Generic D6 Constraint
- Added serialization for BVH tree ('cooking') for btBvhTriangleMeshShape. See ConcaveDemo for example. Thanks to Phil Knight.
- Fixed issue with kinematic objects at low angular velocity
- Added bt32BitAxis3Sweep broadphase for larger worlds (> 16384 objects, large coordinates)
- Replaced several dynamic allocations by pool/stack allocations. Minor API change, see demos (btDefaultCollisionConfiguration)
- fix in math lib, thanks Jay Lee
- added branch-free quantized aabb overlap check, thanks Phil Knight
- register sphere-sphere, sphere-box, sphere triangle by default
- faster traversal for BVH/triangle meshes by default

- Improved Generic D6 Constraint
- Added serialization for BVH tree ('cooking') for btBvhTriangleMeshShape. See ConcaveDemo for example. Thanks to Phil Knight.
- Fixed issue with kinematic objects at low angular velocity
- Added bt32BitAxis3Sweep broadphase for larger worlds (> 16384 objects, large coordinates)
- Replaced several dynamic allocations by pool/stack allocations. Minor API change, see demos (btDefaultCollisionConfiguration)
- fix in math lib, thanks Jay Lee
- added branch-free quantized aabb overlap check, thanks Phil Knight
- register sphere-sphere, sphere-box, sphere triangle by default
- faster traversal for BVH/triangle meshes by default

- New parallel constraint solver for Cell SPU, multi-code PC and XBox 360, and improved parallel collision detection, thanks to Marten Svanfeldt, Starbreeze Studios

- refactored broadphase management to allow multi-broadphases, thanks to Pierre Terdiman for the discussion, see http://www.continuousphysics.com/Bullet/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=1329

- various bugfixes and minor improvements

-added Ragdoll Demo
-added Vector Math library (Sony)
-added SIMD math library (Sony)
-updated User Manual
-added btHeightfieldTerrainShape
-upgraded to GIMPACT 0.2
-added raycasting filter
-allow explicit setting of collision filter in addRigidBody
-allow custom collision filtering in broadphase
-improved debug rendering
-optionally disable pair-wise collision of rigidbodies -sharing a constraint (can be empty constraint to just disable collisionS)... read more

KleMiX has written a full managed Bullet XNA port. It is up-to-date with Bullet 2.51 C++ version, entirely rewritten in C#.

http://www.codeplex.com/xnadevru/Wiki/View.aspx?title=Managed%20Bullet%20Physics%20Library&referringTitle=Home

With some fixes of newly reported bugs: 32-bit broadphase issue with static plane, and aabb tree quantization problems with trianglemeshes without volume.

Please upgrade to Bullet 2.51 Physics SDK. It contains some important improvements/bugfixes:

- btAxisSweep3: Fixed a bug in btAxisSweep3 (sweep and prune) related to object removal. Only showed up when at least one btStaticPlaneShape was inserted.
Thanks tbp for more details on reproducing case.
- btAxisSweep3: Fixed issue with full 32bit precision btAxisSweep3 (define BP_USE_FIXEDPOINT_INT_32), it used only 0xffff/65536 for quantization instead of full integer space (0xffffffff)
- btRaycastVehicle: Added 'getForwardVector' and getCurrentSpeedKmHour utility functions
- Fixed local scaling issues (btConvexTriangleMeshShape, btBvhTriangleMeshShape, removed scaling from btMatrix3x3).
Thanks Volker for reporting!... read more

- Synchronized open source version with Playstation 3 SPU optimized version (alignment, padding, etc)
- Added braking to vehicle
- Added 'angularFactor' support in cache friendly solver
- Removed warnings, and fixed minor reported bugs

Added support for deformable static triangle meshes. The btOptimizedBvh, quantized (compressed) stackless aabb tree has a refit to match the triangle mesh.

See concave demo for example

small constraint solver optimizations.

Bullet is a state-of-the-art 3D Collision Detection and Rigid Body Dynamics Library for games. ZLib license, free for commercial use, including Playstation 3. Supports COLLADA Physics. Visit forum at http://bulletphysics.com for support and feedback

- removed STL from the Bullet library: replace std::vector by btAlignedObjectArray. Also removed the std::set for overlapping pair set, and turned it into an overlapping pair array. The SAP only adds objects, never removed. Removal is postponed for during traversal of overlapping pairs (duplicates and non-overlapping pairs are removed during that traversal).... read more

Main contribution is double precision support. This release contrains also other general improvements.

Check out http://www.bulletphysics.com for more information and Physics Discussion Forum.

This Bullet 2.42 Physics version is also used in Blender 2.43 open source 3d modeler.

See also http://bulletphysics.com for support and discussion forum and more information.

New in 2.38 is an optional btNearCallback. See CcdPhysicsDemo for sample.

- Improved EPA penetration depth
- GIMPACT concave-concave improvements
- fixed some deactivation issue with kinematic objects

More info + forum at http://bulletphysics.com

Added contribution for collisions between moving concave meshes using GIMPACT, thanks to Francisco León Nájera.
Download and support forum at http://www.bulletphysics.com

Improved performance and quality for constraint solver and collision detection.
Finished most of the refactoring: btMotionState required for synchronizing world transform. btCollisionObject is now a class with methods

Improved constraint solver performance, comparison code for collision detection (ode box-box) added.

Complete refactoring of Bullet, and addition of GPU physics demo.

All classes have bt- prefix, moved into src folder, and all methods start with lower-case.
btDynamicsWorld derived class replaces obsolete CcdPhysicsEnvironment.

See http://bullet.sf.net

Complete refactoring of Bullet, and addition of GPU physics demo.

All classes have bt- prefix, moved into src folder, and all methods start with lower-case.
btDynamicsWorld derived class replaces obsolete CcdPhysicsEnvironment.

See http://bullet.sf.net

Fixed 2 bugs that cause crashing when removing objects. Introduced during recent optimizations.