Visible, non-collidable terrain?

[Marcel Offermans]

When setting up the terrain, there is an option to load a mesh (from an .obj file) and add it to the terrain by calling AddPatch(). This will then automatically become collidable terrain and you can provide a switch to render it or not. What I am wondering is if there is also an option to load a mesh that is purely for display purposes, but not collidable. Technically it probably would therefore not be part of the terrain at all, but is there a way to load and render it anyway?

[Radu Serban]

Marcel,

No, I didn't consider that option. Mostly because the primary function of a rigid terrain patch is to model the physics aspects of it.  Depending on the application, the visuals of a terrain patch may require more than what makes sense to expose through the API for a patch.

For now, you can add whatever visuals you want (matching or not any physics terrain patches you may have) by adding a placeholder body to the ChSystem, setting that body as "fixed", and disabling collision and contact for it.  You can then add whatever assets you want to the visual model for that body.

Having said that, we are talking about adding a formal definition of a "world" to Chrono which would specify both physical and visual description of the environment.  We can discuss this off-line if you are interested in being part of this conversation.

Best,

Radu

---

From: projec...@googlegroups.com <projec...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Marcel Offermans <marcel.o...@gmail.com>
Sent: Tuesday, June 28, 2022, 11:28 AM
To: ProjectChrono <projec...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: [chrono] Visible, non-collidable terrain?

When setting up the terrain, there is an option to load a mesh (from an .obj file) and add it to the terrain by calling AddPatch(). This will then automatically become collidable terrain and you can provide a switch to render it or not. What I am wondering is if there is also an option to load a mesh that is purely for display purposes, but not collidable. Technically it probably would therefore not be part of the terrain at all, but is there a way to load and render it anyway?

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "ProjectChrono" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to projectchron...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/projectchrono/1432dd0a-d4c7-489f-b994-5b3f5e29660fn%40googlegroups.com.

[Marcel Offermans]

Thanks for suggesting a way to do this, I will definitely take a look at this, and I will be in touch to become part of the conversation of making a definition of a "world" with both visual and physical elements.