VRML - American Football/Rugby Ball

Author

American Football/Rugby Ball

Sam Davies

2004-04-02, 9:35 am

Hey Guys,

I'm trying to create a VRML demo that simulates a rugby ball. If your
unfamiliar its exactly the same as an American football, but without
the laces. Firstly do you think this is possible? It's easy enough to
get a spherical ball working properly, but due to the obscure shape
I've been strugglering to work out a formula. I like to have the
ability to throw the ball in the air and let gravity do the rest.

Any suggestions, or is this just a bit to far fetched for VRML

Cheers
Sam

simon place

2004-04-03, 9:31 am

Sam Davies wrote:
> Hey Guys,
>
> I'm trying to create a VRML demo that simulates a rugby ball. If your
> unfamiliar its exactly the same as an American football, but without
> the laces. Firstly do you think this is possible? It's easy enough to
> get a spherical ball working properly, but due to the obscure shape
> I've been strugglering to work out a formula. I like to have the
> ability to throw the ball in the air and let gravity do the rest.
>
> Any suggestions, or is this just a bit to far fetched for VRML
>
> Cheers
> Sam

like any language, given enough code you can do anything, i've done a lot of
dynamics modelling in vrml using javascript, and basically what you gain in
simple visualisation and distribution you loose from the lack of libraries, so
vrml suits simple modelling where the visualisation is all important, if your
talking about how the ball bounces then i think vrml's not a bad choice,( it
would all actually be a javascript or java program.) but if you are looking at
angular momentum and aerodynamics, then its not a good choice, unless you
could obtain prewritten java code.

P.S. a rugby ball is nearly the mathematical object called a prolate spheroid.
( and a smarty is an oblate spheroid.) this might help you doing a search.

simon.