This is interesting - even if you just want a smooth scroll action you still need to relate it somehow to machine time (bad approximation of real time) and some time constant. It might be most efficient to group all those functions into a library rather than have lots of apps each doing these calcs independently each using the time system calls.
If you start a project I will help - I am a simulation engineer used to modeling fluid dynamics, chemistry and electricity. Johan -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Florent THIERY Sent: Thursday, March 22, 2007 6:39 AM To: OpenMoko Community List Subject: UI long term development perspective: physics engine Hi I know it's not gonna come in the priority list before at least a year (or ever), but if we want to add eye candy & (possibly) useability to the UI (such as smooth realistic list scrolling, as seen in apple's iphone demo on contacts lists), we'll need a physics engine, so that moves & animations aren't all linear. All i found so far is the akamaru lib, needs just GLib: http://people.freedesktop.org/~krh/akamaru.git/ If you want to take a quick look at the code: svn co http://svn.kiba-dock.org/akamaru/ akamaru It's a verlet integration implementation; modelization includes elasticity, friction, gravity, geometrical objects... The only (AFAIK) implementation using this model is kiba-dock, a *fun* app launcher, but we may find another use to it in the future. For instance, it may be useful to gesture recognition (i'm not aware if existing gesture recognition engines measure speed, acceleration, ...). There's an undergoing verlet integration into the e17 project (by rephorm) see http://rephorm.com/news/tag/physics , so we may see some UI physics integration into e17 someday. Such early projects mainly show "rope-like" animations, but maybe the API wil spare some time for different usages. Well, that was just a useless thought, but i'd be happy to know if other people are wondering about improving the user experience regarding physics-model-based UI animation. FLorent _______________________________________________ OpenMoko community mailing list [email protected] http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community _______________________________________________ OpenMoko community mailing list [email protected] http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
