MyQSimTab

Simulation tab (motion visualization)

The Nabble post

• No one has replied yet, as of 8/19/2011.

Features to do

• Text annotation in video The classes for this should already be inluded, and there are some commented-out lines about how to do this in the function MyQSimTab::initSim(). The text is always projected so that it's like a HUD. Perhaps t = time (s) can be displayed on the HUD, as well as the name of the bike being animated.
• Force input control Either a live-feedback slider or an option between standard inputs: square wave etc. Perhaps the force input would not kick in until the bike has moved around for a bit.
• Set initial forward speed The user needs to be able to set the initial forward speed of the bicycle
• Multiple bicycles side by side or render together in the same window. I tried to write code so that the user can select which single bike is used for the simulation analysis. For some reason the variables weren't assigning correctly (had trouble changing the value MyQWhipple::doSim with a setter method). Otherwise, there are if-statement's written to allow the user to select a bike to use for the simulation. To avoid the problems with implementing this, the first bike (index, bidx = 0) is used.
• Save video frames want this to happen offline, at higher resolution. There's a vtk class to do this higher-res stuff but I forgot its name; it's in the user manual.
• Use Matrix4x4 Luke would like to transition from making multiple calls to SetPosition and SetOrientation to making a single call to SetMatrix4x4 for each actor assembly. I don't fully understand yet.
• Crash detection gently handle the gsl error that occurs when the bike falls over. Possibly detect with ratio of lateral to normal force at the wheels.

Features in progress

• Wheel traces on the ground Uses vtkPoints, vtkPolyLine. The code is there but it's not updating as it should with each frame =/
• Update plot below animation Not updating properly. Currently configured to draw only in the stopsimSlot. Another problem is that if the plot is drawn with vtkChart::LINE, the curves draw back to a point near t = 0, making the plot look sloppy. For that reason I've tried vtkChart::POINTS, but this is not preferred; it is preferred to make sure the data points are correct in the vtkTable. I've tried deleting the last row of the vtkTable just before rendering, but this did not seem to work. Another issue is that the different data has different magnitudes so everything looks like a straight line on the plot: there should be separate plots for forces, etc. or the user should choose which curves to draw.

Features completed

• Simulation data to text file

Bugs

• Camera angle There is some code to set camera angle already, and Chris has tried a few things. However, the camera does not actually obey what it is told to do, currently.
• Small rendering area While the animation is playing, only a very small area around the bike is actually drawn by vtk. If the user clicks on the render window whilst it's animating, the animation will pause and the entire world is rendered.