Re: [Pyode-user] collision woes

[Ethan Glasser-C. <gl...@cs...>]

Hi! Sorry about the delay -- it's hard for me to find free time these 
days. I'm not really familiar with vpython so I may be vastly 
misinterpreting the function of your program.

On 01/11/2011 03:17 PM, Marc Killpack wrote:
> I've been trying to make a simple robot simulator which includes 
> collisions.  I'm getting weird
> behavior though and wondered if I'm just making a dumb mistake.  I 
> want some objects that are
> fixed in the environment.  From other examples and from archived 
> questions on the list it seems like
> the best way to do this is using geometry objects that are not 
> associated with a body.  The only
> collision that works so far is if I collide with the floor plane that 
> is defined as a fixed geometry.
> I've attached my file that uses vpython for visualization and I had 
> the following questions if anyone
> is willing:
>
> 1)If I set a tall square in place, different sizes will result in 
> collisions while smaller sizes do not, why?
> (Try changing width and length of square to 0.1 in line 56 of .py file 
> to reproduce this)

It looks like body1, your robot arm, is not being rotated. If I 
understand correctly, this means that the capsule is extending along the 
Z-axis, whereas you are drawing it as extending along the X-axis. That 
is to say, your joint is not swinging the capsule like the arm of a 
turnstile, but more like the head of a hammer. I think the box obstacle 
is sufficiently wide that the capsule hits it anyhow, but if it is only 
0.1, it fits "inside" the the radius of the hammer swing. To fix this, I 
put:

body1.setRotation([0, 0, 1, 0, 1, 0, -1, 0, 0])

Just after your body1.setPosition() call, before adding the geom. (A 90 
degree rotation around the Y axis, to exchange the X and Z axes, to make 
your visualization line up with the simulation.) Now a collision always 
happens.

> Also, if I change the bounciness in the collision callback function 
> (line 28), it seems to have no effect
> on the collision, why?

I'm guessing the motor on the joint is sufficiently powerful to keep 
pressing the body against the obstacle. Try changing MaxForce to 0 after 
the first time step (at the end of the while loop), so that the body has 
an initial velocity. You'll definitely see a bounce, and it will 
definitely be different for different bouncinesses.

> 2)I can place a geometry object that is a capped cylinder in the 
> environment but how do I orient it?  I tried
> setting the rotation, but still couldn't get a collision to occur.  
> Change "OBSTACLE = 2" on line 9 to see this.

This looks right to me, and once I added the rotation of the body (as 
per point 1), this caused collisions.

> 3)If I want forces from the collision, it seems that I have to have 
> the obstacle be associated with a body
> as well, is that true?  If so, what kind of hinge or connection should 
> I use?  I tried a fixed joint to the
> environment but that also did weird things.
I don't think this is true. Can you explain further?

Ethan