Re: [Pyode-user] XODE

[Bernie R. <br...@ec...>]

I was about to start doing this myself.   :-)

I notice you're using a SAX-based parsers, which is what I was planning to do.

However, there is a complication.  The XODE spec (thank you to whoever sent
me the URL -- much appreciated) allows <geom> elements to exist with no
indication of what shape they are.  This makes things needlessly complex,
since in ODE one cannot create a geom without knowing what shape it is,
so one has to keep track of all kinds of information about the geom in the
XODE parser before encountering the <box> or <sphere> or whatever node
gives its shape.

This is a serious enough issue that I would propose that we contact the XODE
folks and ask them to change to using <geomBox>, <geomSphere>, etc,
or having a mandatory "shape" attribute on <geom>.  They already seem to make
reference to such a shape attribute, but it doesn't appear to be mandatory.

I think the <geomBox> (etc) approach is much cleaner, since there is then
a more direct correpsondence between the element tags and the ODE objects.
It also means that different elements can have different attributes (e.g. a 
geomSphere
would have a radius attribute).

I'm going to be very busy starting (checking my watch... now!), so would 
someone
here who has been following the XODE work be able to pass along that 
suggestion,
assuming you agree with it?



At 08:42 PM 6/25/2004 +0200, Timothy Stranex wrote:
>Hey,
>
>I've checked the XODE specification and I think it should be implemented
>in pure Python. I started writing an importer today using the
>xml.parsers.expat module. It's very incomplete with just basic skeleton
>code (I have not even bothered trying to test it yet) but I would like
>to hear your comments on the interface.
>
>The code is attached as xode.py.
>
>--
>Timothy Stranex <ti...@st...>
>

--
   Bernie Roehl
   University of Waterloo Dept of Electrical and Computer Engineering
   Mail: br...@ec...   Voice: (519) 888-4567 x 2607 [work]
   URL: http://ece.uwaterloo.ca/~broehl