Roland Melkert Wrote:Thanks for you thoughts on the issue.You're welcome.
Roland Melkert Wrote:it will also be possible to use them for 'action response' e.g. the user spins an axle in the model, all the rest moves based on script calculations.That sounds good, and based on your obvious programming skills (I watched one of your videos even if I haven't run the software) I would say you're the perfect man for the job.
I wonder, have you ever used SolidWorks or similar? SW has a "mating" feature that allows you to define mating relationships between components via a point-and-click interface and dialog property boxes, so no script needs to be written. You can define for example a concentric relationship for rotational parts, and a coincident planar relationship for sliding parts, and you can further refine scaling (for gear ratios) or constraints in movement range, and so on.
You can then, for example, drag the steering wheel on a car to rotate it and the steering rack will move linearly and the wheels will turn left/right. Of course, you can also drag a wheel and cause the steering wheel to turn. Things do get a bit hairy though when a part has multiple degrees of freedom - when you drag a wheel on a car, are you trying to rotate the wheel on its axle, or are you trying to push the wheel against the suspension. Things can quickly get confusing with complex mating arrangements and the version of SW I've used does struggle at times.
If you managed any usable kind of interface for visually dragging a part (on a 3D view) and its mated parts (scripted or otherwise) then I think people would be impressed, especially in a free CAD application.