Friday, March 6, 2009

Project spotlight: Mekanimo


Mekanimo is a 2D physics simulator. In minutes, you can create simulations, interactive games and puzzles, dazzling graphics and share them with others through the Internet.
Mekanimo really surprised me with its professional-looking user interface. It allows for the creation of worlds with customizable scripting, various plots, and so many other things. I enjoyed trying out the exhibits like the marble pump, which require you to copy and paste the code into Mekanimo for now -- I think the author Fahri has been putting much more into the application itself than its website.

It's still got a ways to go and unfortunately is (for now?) closed source, but keep an eye on it. I expect it to turn into a really nice and polished learning/design tool some day.

pybox2d svn r184

Bugfix: Linux/x64 build issue.
Updated to Box2D r204:
b2Body now has these additional functions:
  • SetLinear/AngularDamping (additionally accessible by body.linearDamping = (x,y) )
  • SetStatic
  • SetFixedRotation (additionally accessible by body.fixedRotation = True)
b2Shape:
  • SetSensor
A few functions' names changed since some of the 2.0.2b1 accessor code was my own, but chances are you were using the properties anyway:

IsRotationFixed -> IsFixedRotation (property fixedRotation)
CanSleep -> IsAllowSleeping (property allowSleep)