Curtis L. Olson wrote:
 > Andy Ross writes:
 > > No problems there.  YASim now reports this number in
 > > /gear/gears[n]/compression-norm (should be an OK choice, according
 > > to our rapidly evolving property conventions).  The remaining
 > > problems are only bookkeeping.  We need to make exactly certain that
 > > the FDM and the model agree on the placement of the gear and their
 > > direction of compression.
 >
 > This is one where actual distance of compression in meters, cm,
 > inches, or whatever would be very useful.  Otherwise it seems like it
 > would be impossible to get the animated gear to sit perfectly on the
 > runway.

Meters wouldn't be enough.  You'd need to know the compression
direction as well.  Even then, many aircraft have a more complicated
gear compression behavior (spring steel splays outwards, shocks
telescope, etc.).  The 3D modeler pretty much has to know the whole
compression range when they do the model.  If they just accept a number
from the FDM, things will look wrong even if the gear are on the
ground.

Really, we can't get around the bookkeeping problem here.  Allowing
the modeler the ability to exactly represent the FDM state is easy,
and the compression-norm number is sufficient.  But actually getting
it right is a lot of work and tedium, and there's not much the
interface can do to help.

Andy

-- 
Andrew J. Ross                NextBus Information Systems
Senior Software Engineer      Emeryville, CA
[EMAIL PROTECTED]              http://www.nextbus.com
"Men go crazy in conflagrations.  They only get better one by one."
  - Sting (misquoted)


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