Issue with convexSweepTest() not reporting hits

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reltham
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Issue with convexSweepTest() not reporting hits

Post by reltham »

I am having an issue with convexSweepTest(). Testing a box shape against a world containing bvhTriangleMeshShapes.

I have diagnosed it down to the following case being the problem:
If a triangle in the mesh is large enough that the box object being swept can be in contact with the triangle but not be touching any of the triangle edges during the sweep and the sweep direction is parallel (or very near parallel) to the triangle's plane, then bullet will not report a hit in that triangle.

If I change the sweep direction such that it's no longer parallel to the plane of the triangle, then bullet will report the hit.

Below (attached also) is my handy dandy programmer art drawing of what I am describing. In my case the length of the sweep is about 2 meters, and the triangle is just big enough (like 3m sides). Also, pretend the circles are boxes.
example_problem.jpg
example_problem.jpg (20.48 KiB) Viewed 10676 times
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Erwin Coumans
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Re: Issue with convexSweepTest() not reporting hits

Post by Erwin Coumans »

Could it be that the starting point is already in penetration? Right now the convexSweepTest doesn't report any hit if the starting point is in penetration.

Thanks,
Erwin
reltham
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Re: Issue with convexSweepTest() not reporting hits

Post by reltham »

Yes, the starting point is in penetration.

Can I make it report these cases somehow?
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Erwin Coumans
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Re: Issue with convexSweepTest() not reporting hits

Post by Erwin Coumans »

reltham wrote:Yes, the starting point is in penetration.

Can I make it report these cases somehow?
The best you can get is a fallback to the discrete collision detector, providing a contact normal, distance and time of impact of zero, is that ok?

We will improve the query for Bullet 2.76.
Cheers!
Erwin
reltham
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Re: Issue with convexSweepTest() not reporting hits

Post by reltham »

That would be great. In our current usage case, even if it just reported that it started in collision with an object that would be enough.
Is this something you need to add or is there something I can do to make it happen? I spent a little time digging through the bullet code related to the convex sweeps and wasn't able to figure out where it "ignores" the starting in penetration case. I assume it's someplace down in the bowels of the gjk or whatever.

On a similar note, it would be handy if there were queries that could take a shape and return all of the objects (filtered like any other collision checks) in the collision world that are in contact with the shape or contained by the shape. I understand that you have ghost objects, but those don't really work well for this, since you have to create one and insert it into the world and then go thru some update cycles before you can find out what's in contact. I want to be able to just make a single call similar to rayTest or convexSweepTest that just returns the results.

Thanks,
Roy
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Erwin Coumans
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Re: Issue with convexSweepTest() not reporting hits

Post by Erwin Coumans »

It all happens inside this file. The discrete collision detection is called (using GJK), and the normal and contact point is store (but no distance):
http://code.google.com/p/bullet/source/ ... lision.cpp

An easy to use API query will be added for discrete collision detection, with a first beta release of 2.76 later this month. Using a ghost shape should be fine too, there should be no need for update cycles.
reltham
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Re: Issue with convexSweepTest() not reporting hits

Post by reltham »

So I commented out a check near the bottom and calcTimeOfImpact() in that file.

Code: Select all

    if ((projectedLinearVelocity+ maxAngularProjectedVelocity)<=result.m_allowedPenetration)//SIMD_EPSILON)
        return false;
Commenting out this made my sweeps work the way I wanted them to, and it didn't seem to have any ill effects on our other collision/dynamics stuff, so I can get by with this change until your changes come along in 2.76.

I also found that the allowedPenetration that I was passing into convexSweepTest() was not making it into here. That result.m_allowedPenetration was always 0. I tried 1, 10, and 1000 going into convexSweepTest() and it seemed to make no difference. Perhaps this has to do with the objects in the world (that I am doing sweeps against) being bvhTriangleMeshShapes?
ola
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Re: Issue with convexSweepTest() not reporting hits

Post by ola »

Erwin Coumans wrote: An easy to use API query will be added for discrete collision detection, with a first beta release of 2.76 later this month. Using a ghost shape should be fine too, there should be no need for update cycles.
Hi,

just wondered if this particular feature has been added yet? I need to do some "probing around" using a collision shape.

Cheers,
Ola
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Erwin Coumans
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Re: Issue with convexSweepTest() not reporting hits

Post by Erwin Coumans »

* EDIT: a fix for the contactTest has been added in revision 1987 *
ola wrote:just wondered if this particular feature has been added yet? I need to do some "probing around" using a collision shape.
OK, the latest trunk has a new discrete collision query against all overlapping objects in the world:

Code: Select all

void        btCollisionWorld::contactTest(btCollisionObject* queryColObj,ContactResultCallback& resultCallback);
The user should derive its own class from ContactResultCallback and implement
the following callback (similar to the gContactAddedCallback):

Code: Select all

virtual btScalar        addSingleResult(btManifoldPoint& cp,    const btCollisionObject* colObj0,int partId0,int index0,const btCollisionObject* colObj1,int partId1,int index1) = 0;
I haven't tested the contactTest query yet, can you try it out?

The queryColObj doesn't need to be inserted in the world. In fact, if you only have a collision shape and world transform, you can use this:

Code: Select all

btCollisionObject tmpObj;
tmpObj.setCollisionShape(shape);
tmpObj.setWorldTransform(worldTrans);
world->contactTest(tempObj,callack);
There is also a pairwise test (contactPairTest). Can you test the new queries and let us know if it works for you?
Thanks!
Erwin

By the way: queries between certain concave shapes are not supported (btBvhTriangleMeshShape versus btBvhTriangleMeshShape or btStaticPlaneShape etc.)
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