Hello TDahl,

First of all, very professional work here, in a sence of understanding how to use the plugin despite the lack of documentation on it. Great job!

I'm not sure what is causing the crash. I think that the physics engine has a limit on how much joints it can control at once. I will look into this bugsplat issue when I find the time.

Meanwhile, there are a couple of things you can do to improve behavior of cable and performance:

1. Because you are relying on a small timestep (1/300), reducing solver model, to 4 iterations for example, would improve the performance by a good factor. Solver model basically controls the stability of joints. If your timestep is small, reducing solver model would alter the stability joints by an unnoticeable factor.
2. Specificating the collision shape of "FCC Segment Instance" to Box should improve the performance as well. I assume you already did that for your the edited model, but in case you haven't, here is an easy way to do it for all of them: Because all your cable segments have the same name, you can assign a box shape to one of the segments and use the Assign Props to All with Name button, within the MSPhysics UI, to assign alike properties to all instances with the same name.
3. Because all joints are flexible, you can simply rely on a Fixed joint, rather than Hinge. This would make the entire cable more stiff and of course improve performance.
   I eddied your model, containing all the addressed suggestions and attached it below.

Also, if you change a joint within one of the wire segments, which also adds it to all other component instances, you can re-interconnect the segments with their joint by pasting this command into Ruby Console:

id = 646194 # Change this to desired joint ID.
instance_name = 'FCC Segment Instance' # Change this to instance name
ids = [id]
Sketchup.active_model.start_operation('OP', true, false, false)
Sketchup.active_model.entities.each { |e|
  if (e.is_a?(;;Sketchup;;ComponentInstance) || e.is_a?(Sketchup;;Group)) && e.name == instance_name
    e.set_attribute('MSPhysics Body', 'Connected Joints', ids)
  end
}
Sketchup.active_model.commit_operation

That's the code I used to interconnect the Fixed joints with their segments.

Once again, great work, TDahl!

Best regards,
Anton

Viking Lander for SSAA FCC Animation Bare.skp

I think I figured it out. Enabling transparent mode for an operation will simply merge it with a previous non-transparent one, regardless if the previous operation is active or not. So, even this should work:

model = Sketchup.active_model
model.start_operation('Main OP', false, false, false) # A placeholder for all sub operations
model.commit_operation
x = 0
while (x < 100)
  model.start_operation('Sub OP', true, false, true)
  # Do some crazy geometry manipulation,
  # that I don't want the observer to respond while I'm doing it...
  model.commit_operation
  # Committing operation will allow the observers to respond and update view properly.
  # Do something involving view, like exporting proper view into images
  # Increment counter
  x += 1
end

Edit: Nevermind. transparent flag is limmited to 100 operations. After that it turns into a normal operation, flooding the undo stack. Running one operation with ui_disable set to false does update the view properly, so I'll stick with it, but it's slow...

Hello,

I'm returning to this old topic because of a nested operations question.

I need a way to do crazy geometry manipulation, multiple times and display results in the process, but without updating the undo stack. If I have one operation, with disable_ui parameter set to false, the operation will be slow. If I have one operation with disable_ui parameter set to true, the operation will be fast but the resulting view will be ugly; that is, the view won't display well until operation is committed. What I need is a way to do multiple fast operations but without flooding the undo stack.

The fourth parameter of start_operation allows making transparent operations, which is what I need. The code below is what I think is its implementation should be. Although, I have second thoughts; I'm not sure if this is the correct implementation. Docs say that starting a new operation will implicitly end the previous operation. So, should I even bother calling the commit_operation the second time, after the while loop? Does anybody know if this is the right implementation? The docs don't explain this in detail unfortunately.

model = Sketchup.active_model
model.start_operation('Main OP', false, false, false)
x = 0
while (x < 100)
  model.start_operation('Sub OP', true, false, true)
  # Do some crazy geometry manipulation,
  # that I don't want the observer to respond while I'm doing it...
  model.commit_operation
  # Committing operation will allow the observers to respond and update view properly,
  # but I'm not sure whether it commits the main operation as well...
  # Do something involving view, like exporting proper view into images
  # Increment counter
  x += 1
end
model.commit_operation

Also, ignore that I didn't add all the begin/rescue/ensure blocks... They would make this code a lot more complicated to understand.

Thanks,
Anton

Fredo,

Thank you very much for developing this licencing system! It would be essential for many plugin developers in the future, including me.

Regards,
Anton

@robibue said:

My problem is, the system starts to wobble after 10 seconds , and after 30 seconds it spins out of control .

what am I doing wrong?

If you set simulation solver model to iterative 64 passes and update timestep to 1/120, the wobbling should be significantly reduced.

@robibue said:

edit: I wanted to attach a spring (instead of using the angular spring hinge) but I believe that springs are fixed and non-movable) and somehow I can't implement this idea.

Don't do that. Spring joints are for linear motion, not for angular. Either use angular spring, or since you want to dampen the whole thing, simply change hinge mode to Angular Friction and increase the friction parameter, to say, 4000000.

Almost finished. You can expect it sometime in the beginning of October.

Faust, replay doesn't record transformation of vertices. There is nothing you can do with it yet, but is a good request.

Making relative joints is easy if you know the concept. Here is how it's done: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B3qg8f4WrNdHUDJrTUsybmU0NGs

@jb1016 said:

Is there a way to utilize multi core processors with msphysics?

Probably not. When I compiled Newton, I disabled multi-threading, due to issues encountered with it. I will try to enable multi-threading in the next release.

In addition to what Rich said, create a copy of your model file prior to extruding it and adding MSPhysics joints. That way your original model will be there whenever you need it.

You can rely on MSPhysics::Body.#contacts function. Add this code to an iceberg to see the effect:

onTick {
  if this.get_velocity.length > 1.0 && frame % 10 == 0
    this.contacts(true).each { |contact|
      body = simulation.emit_body(@@splash4, contact.point, @@dir, 0.4)
      body.collidable = false
    }
  end
}

Hmm... I think something is wrong in code or with MSPhysics. Try changing the rain dproplet's code to this:

onStart {
  @instances = {}
}

onTick {
  dir = this.group.transformation.zaxis
  dir.length = this.mass
  point = this.get_position + Geom;;Vector3d.new((rand()-0.5)*1000, (rand()-0.5)*1000, (rand()-0.5)*10)
  tra = Geom;;Transformation.new(point)
  rain = simulation.emit_body(this, tra, dir, 5)
  rain.collidable = false
  @instances[rain] = true
  @instances.reject! { |k,v|
    next true unless k.valid?
    point = k.get_position(0)
    if point.z < 0
      #k.destroy(true)
      posineu = Geom;;Point3d.new(point.x, point.y, 5)
      tra = Geom;;Transformation.new(posineu)
      body = simulation.emit_body(@@splash2, tra, @@dir, 0.25)
      body.collidable = false
      if frame % 3 == 0
        posineu = Geom;;Point3d.new(point.x, point.y, -2)
        tra = Geom;;Transformation.new(posineu)
        body = simulation.emit_body(@@bubble2, tra, @@dir, 0.2)
        body.collidable = false
      end
      next true
    end
    false
  }
}

Aside from that, you can use onTouching event for repetitive action, but it only yields toucher parameter and doesn't provide touch position.

There were a few issues.

In new version, onTouch is triggered only one time, whenever there is a contact between bodies. In your script you tried to use the onTouch event as a repetitive event for generating trailing waves. It did work, as a bug, in version 0.9.9 but not anymore.

Another thing is setting emitted bodies non-collidable. Setting the original bodies non-collidable won't make the emitted body non-collidable. You must appply such state explicitly to the emitted body:

body = simulation.emit_body(...)
body.collidable = false

I fixed all these issues and also made rain droplets be independent of touch event.

Faust's Whale.skp

Left-click on the sky/background to suppress the highlighting. You can't unfortunately hide the group from the menu though. I should've thought of adding this command.

Sorry, I forgot to test it on Windows XP. It should be fixed now. Upgrade to AMS Library, version 3.5.2.

Hmm. I'm not getting any errors in my SU8. Are you using the latest versions of both plugins? If not, try completely removing both and installing once again.

Edit: Actually I'm getting a similar error when I attempt to start MSPhysics simulation in SU8. I haven't been able to determine the cause, so try sticking to SU2013+.

Edit: I will ensure the compatibility with SU version prior to 2013 at some point.

The green piece can be grouped with the blue pieces: ungroup both of the blue pieces, hold CTRL, select the green piece, and regroup them all together.

For improvements you can change the collision of the yellow wheels to Cylinder shape. Also, set the solver model to iterative 16 passes and material thickness to zero.

The only way you will achieve a smooth ride is by relying on the CurvySlider joints and having the entire track set be ignored; relying on contacts will rarely show you good results. Here I attached your model with two CurvySlider joints lining the entire track. I also used Fredo6's Curvyvizard (http://sketchucation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=415495#p415495) to smooth the curvy at certain, rough locations.
soru.skp

I came across it. And it works under certain conditions. For me it worked when signing through Microsoft Edge rather than through Chrome.

Faust: I fixed it. Update to 1.0.1.

Ecati: It depends on a model. If your model is working properly, then there is nothing necessary to update; otherwise, adjust the properties of joints, body properties, like emitters, and scripts (if any). If you have trouble doing so, post a model in "MSPhysics Tests and Questions" thread if you need help.

Announcing MSPhysics 1.0.0!

This version comes with a significant amount of improvements and a few new features. Main feature is a custom automated transitioning of scenes, which can transition forward, backward, and loop. Here is a model demonstrating it:
Planned Steps.skp
A detailed list of other features and bug fixes can be found here: http://www.rubydoc.info/github/AntonSynytsia/MSPhysics/file/RubyExtension/MSPhysics/CHANGELOG.md

This requires installing AMS Library version 3.5.0, which is referenced in first post. If you received development versions of AMS Library, you must upgrade to the latest one.

Also, you no longer have to bother removing original versions as the overwriting should work fine now.

I have removed geared joints feature until the next release, as it was the only thing that preventing me from releasing this version.

And one more thing, models creating with prior MSPhysics version might work differently/be incompatible with this version. Make sure to update your models' physics properties and scripts if necessary.