SP4 idea - Using PLC motif for Sketchyphysics scripting
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I just found and registered on this forum. In reading up on old posts, I find several asking for support for game controller buttons, and a few asking for sensors within the model that SP can respond to. The first idea that popped in my head was treat in-model sensors as virtual game controller buttons.
That made me think about the Programmable Logic Controller training setups they use in the Mechanical Engineering department at the University where I work: physical table top stuff, motors and gears and microswitches. So, Sketchyphysics is already 'glue' code between Sketchup and the embeddable Newton physics engine. If you're looking for a way to add 'scripting' support in Sketchyphysics, how about 'gluing' in an embeddable PLC engine from any of the existing PLC simulator/training programs? After all, PLCs are essentially real world scripting, and the program you glue in can supply the UI for programing the PLC logic.
I know many PLC simulators are out there, used for teaching PLC programming. I'm not familiar with any of them to offer advice on which are free (open source-wise), or which might have embeddable engines. I just figured gluing in existing code would save a whole bunch of effort, on top of which it would turn Sketchyphysics in to the best PLC training software in the world.
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Interesting. I have looked at several visual programming languages but never heard of this one.
There are several things I like about the idea and a few I don't. First it is simple and pretty powerful. Second it is something of a standard and well documented. You can find examples and get help.
But even though it seems simple to me I wonder if the average SP user could make heads or tails of it. Its pretty esoteric.
Also, I would have to write a parser (and probably editor) in Ruby. I couldnt find an existing one and I dont want to be dependent on any more c++ code than I have to.
I haven't decided how to go about adding logic to SP yet. But this is in the running.
Thanks!
Chris
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