Editing MGED CMD simulate

[[category:tutorials]]

BRL-CAD recently integrated a new command in its mged tool, the simulate command. Those are the steps one should follow in order to run a simulation in the mged tool.

First open the mged tool, if you have BRL-CAD installed on your Linux system it should be easy, just type mged in a terminal and a mged terminal should open.

{|align="left"
 |<pre>
brlcad@brlcad: mged
</pre>
|}

In the mged terminal select the File menu, and then on the New... (file dialog button). A window will appear and a name for your new database will be required. For the purpose of this tutorial we will name the new database, sim1. Introduce the chosen name (sim1) in the "File name:" field and hit save.
Now you have opened a new database. Next we want to add some geometry to the database. Something that we will have to simulate on. 
In the mged command window we will now type the following series of commands :

{|align="left"
 |<pre>
mged> in
Enter name of solid: box
Enter solid type: rpp
Enter XMIN, XMAX, YMIN, YMAX, ZMIN, ZMAX: -1 1 0 5 -1 1
</pre>
|}

The "in" command creates new geometry, it allows the user to type in the arguments to create a shape with the name provided by the second argument, in the example above is the name provided when "Enter name of solid:" appears on the screen. The arguments of the in command can be provided one by one, as in the example above or in one single line, like in the example below:

{|align="left"
 |<pre>
mged> in box rpp -1 1 0 5 -1 1
</pre>
|}

We have so far a box, now we want to add a ground plane to our simulation. 


{|align="left"
 |<pre>
mged> in ground rpp -15 15 -1 1 -15 15
</pre>
|}

You should see now 2 boxes on your screen, one perpendicular on the other one, with a little overlap between them. 
Using the sed command we will select the box and translate it 100 units on the Y axis.

{|align="left"
 |<pre>
mged> sed box
mged> tra 0 100 0
mged> accept
</pre>
|}

To be able to run the simulate command our geometry shapes should be grouped in regions to do this we will use the "r" command and create 2 regions for the box and the ground shapes.

{|align="left"
 |<pre>
mged> r region1.r u box
mged> r region2.r u ground
</pre>
|}

Now we are ready to run the simulate command:

{|align="left"
 |<pre>
mged> simulate 100
</pre>
|}

After the simulation runs its course, we will use the "who" command to find out what objects are being displayed.

{|align="left"
 |<pre>
mged> who
</pre>
|}

You should get the following answer:

{|align="left"
 |<pre>
box ground sim.c
</pre>
|}

Now, we don't really want to display the box and the ground shapes, we already have them in the sim.c group so we will unload all the geometry(using the "Z" command) and will load only the simulate geometry(using the "draw sim.c" command).

{|align="left"
 |<pre>
mged> Z
mged> draw sim.c
</pre>
|}


Now to actually see the simulation we will raytrace it, using the "rt" command.

{|align="left"
 |<pre>
mged> rt
</pre>
|}
@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
 [[category:tutorials]]
-BRL-CAD recently integrated a new command into '''mged''', the '''simulate''' command, which allows for rigid-body physics simulations. This tutorial demonstrates the usage of the '''simulate''' command with a simple scene.
+BRL-CAD recently integrated a new command in its mged tool, the simulate command. Those are the steps one should follow in order to run a simulation in the mged tool.
-{|align="right"
+First open the mged tool, if you have BRL-CAD installed on your Linux system it should be easy, just type mged in a terminal and a mged terminal should open.
- |[[Image:Simulation_1.png|thumb|256px|Cube falling to the ground plane modeled and rendered in BRL-CAD]]
- |}
-First, open the '''mged''' interface and create a new database. Next we want to add some geometry to the database. In the command window we will now type the following series of commands:
-<br>
 {|align="left"
   |<pre>
-mged> units m
+brlcad@brlcad: mged
-mged> in cube.s rpp -1 1 -1 1 -1 1
-mged> r cube.r u cube.s
-mged> attr set cube.r simulate::type region
 </pre>
 |}
-<br style="clear: both" />
-This will create a cube primitive and a containing region. We will use the region later to apply material appearances. We also set the '''simulate::type''' attribute so that the '''simulate''' command regards all primitives within this region as one object.
-<br style="clear: both" />
+In the mged terminal select the File menu, and then on the New... (file dialog button). A window will appear and a name for your new database will be required. For the purpose of this tutorial we will name the new database, sim1. Introduce the chosen name (sim1) in the "File name:" field and hit save.
-Now we want to add a fixed "ground" object to our simulation. BRL-CAD's simulated gravity acts in the ''x''-''y'' axis, so our ground plane should be parallel to this axis.
+Now you have opened a new database. Next we want to add some geometry to the database. Something that we will have to simulate on.
-<br>
+In the mged command window we will now type the following series of commands :
 {|align="left"
   |<pre>
-mged> in ground.s rpp -15 15 -15 15 -1 1
+mged> in
-mged> r ground.r u ground.s
+Enter name of solid: box
-mged> attr set ground.r simulate::type region
+Enter solid type: rpp
+Enter XMIN, XMAX, YMIN, YMAX, ZMIN, ZMAX: -1 1 0 5 -1 1
 </pre>
 |}
-<br style="clear: both" />
+The "in" command creates new geometry, it allows the user to type in the arguments to create a shape with the name provided by the second argument, in the example above is the name provided when "Enter name of solid:" appears on the screen. The arguments of the in command can be provided one by one, as in the example above or in one single line, like in the example below:
-We will also add an attribute specifying that this object's position is fixed:
-<br>
 {|align="left"
   |<pre>
-mged> attr set ground.r simulate::mass 0.0
+mged> in box rpp -1 1 0 5 -1 1
 </pre>
 |}
-<br style="clear: both" />
-We can also give the cube an initial angular velocity (linear velocity can be applied in a similar way):
+We have so far a box, now we want to add a ground plane to our simulation.
-<br>
 {|align="left"
   |<pre>
-mged> attr set cube.r simulate::angular_velocity <2.0,-1.0,3.0>
+mged> in ground rpp -15 15 -1 1 -15 15
 </pre>
 |}
-<br style="clear: both" />
-Now we will add some material appearances to the objects:
+You should see now 2 boxes on your screen, one perpendicular on the other one, with a little overlap between them.
-<br>
+Using the sed command we will select the box and translate it 100 units on the Y axis.
 {|align="left"
   |<pre>
-mged> mater cube.r "plastic {tr 0.2 re 0.2}" 255 0 0 y
+mged> sed box
-mged> mater ground.r "plastic {tr 0.2 re 0.2}" 0 0 255 y
+mged> tra 0 100 0
+mged> accept
 </pre>
 |}
-<br style="clear: both" />
-To specify our simulated system we will define a combination containing both objects. This combination will be modified in-place during the simulation.
+To be able to run the simulate command our geometry shapes should be grouped in regions to do this we will use the "r" command and create 2 regions for the box and the ground shapes.
-We will also change the units of gravity for the simulation to be
-acceleration in mm/s/s due to the small scale of our model.
-<br>
 {|align="left"
   |<pre>
-mged> comb system.c u cube.r u ground.r
+mged> r region1.r u box
-mged> attr set system.c simulate::gravity <0,0,-9.80665>
+mged> r region2.r u ground
 </pre>
 |}
-<br style="clear: both" />
-We will now select the cube and translate it 50 units "up" along the ''y''-axis.
+Now we are ready to run the simulate command:
-<br>
 {|align="left"
   |<pre>
-mged> B system.c
+mged> simulate 100
-mged> oed /system.c/cube.r cube.s
-mged> tra 0 0 50
-mged> accept
 </pre>
 |}
-<br style="clear: both" />
-In order to see what we did so far we should set the view for the geometry we have so far. We will use an "ae 35 15", that means the azimuth angle is at 35 degrees and the elevation at 15 degrees. The angle of elevation of an object as seen by an observer is the angle between the horizontal and the line from the object to the observer's eye (the line of sight).The azimuth of an object is the angular distance along the horizon to the location of the object.We will use "autoview" command to reset the view size and the view center such that all displayed objects are within the view. And then we will do a translation on the Y axis.
+After the simulation runs its course, we will use the "who" command to find out what objects are being displayed.
-<br>
 {|align="left"
   |<pre>
-mged> ae 35 15
+mged> who
-mged> autoview
-mged> tra 0 10 0
 </pre>
 |}
-<br style="clear: both" />
-Now we can save this view for later:
+You should get the following answer:
-<br>
 {|align="left"
   |<pre>
-mged> saveview ae3515.rt
+box ground sim.c
 </pre>
 |}
-<br style="clear: both" />
-Now we are ready to run the simulate command. To preserve our configuration we will first create a copy of our combination.
+Now, we don't really want to display the box and the ground shapes, we already have them in the sim.c group so we will unload all the geometry(using the "Z" command) and will load only the simulate geometry(using the "draw sim.c" command).
-<br>
 {|align="left"
   |<pre>
-mged> cp system.c output.c
+mged> Z
-mged> B output.c
+mged> draw sim.c
-mged> simulate output.c 10.0
 </pre>
 |}
-<br style="clear: both" />
-This will evaluate 10 seconds of simulated physics.
-In order to create an animation from your simulation, you will have to run the script below (note that it requires ImageMagick): (in progress)
+Now to actually see the simulation we will raytrace it, using the "rt" command.
+{|align="left"
+ |<pre>
+mged> rt
+</pre>
+|}