Universität Bielefeld - Sonderforschungsbereich 360
BodTree: A C++ API for Modeling Tree-structured Articulated Rigid
Bodies
John E. Lloyd
Mechanical Engineering Department
Katholieke Universiteit Leuven
Monday, June 7th, 1999, 14 c.t. Uhr, M6 - 114
This informal talk will describe BodTree, a class package intended for use
in the geometric, kinematic, and dynamic modeling of tree-structured
articulated rigid bodies. BodTree extends the hierarchical interconnection
of objects (found in the "scene-graph" concept of 3D graphical APIs) to
include distance determination and collision detection, along with
kinematic and dynamical calculations. An important low-level component of
this scheme is the RxJoint class, which is used to create links (class
RxRigidLink) out of rigid bodies (class RxRigidBody). Links and bodies can
be connected in a tree structure, and a linear sequence of links and
bodies can be collected into a entity known as a serial chain, which has
specific methods to support forward and inverse kinematic calculations.
Dynamical calculations on the tree, or portions of it, are implemented
using Featherstone's spatial dynamics. Collision detection and distance
calculations are performed using Mirtich's VClip algorithm. BodTree is
mainly intended for use in robotic planning and control, but other
applications associated with graphics, VR, and simulation are of coarse
possible.
Anke Weinberger, 1999-06-02