Analyse your rig

Hey

I was able to spend a little more time on my software project lately and bring it forward quite a bit. As a sort of spin-off from the new motion engine I’m working on, I can now extract envelope plots from the rig.

I thought I’d show some of them here:


As of now, I am still outputting the data into a .csv file that I hook up to an .xlsx file which then creates the plot. A bit cumbersome, and if anyone knows how to directly output .xlsx files or turn a raw point cloud into a plot on a .pdf, I’d be happy to get help with that!

As soon as I have a user interface that people stand a fighting chance of understanding, I will publish the software as freeware. I don’t have a catchy name for it though,… I have been calling it the “Rig-O-Meter” or the “Rigalyzer” Let me know if you have a witty idea

The backstory to this thing is, that I have been playing around with my new software and two ideas keep floating in my head:

1. I would love to provide users with a 3D heat map of where on the envelope their simulator session took place and which DOFs or actuators were most limiting. That should make tuning the rig a bit easier.
2. Taking this idea one step further: The software can calculate the DOF margins in real time during operation. That means, the motion engine is “envelope-aware” and could potentially self tune on-the-fly.

Some questionmarks still standing behind those ideas, but the foundation (envelope awareness) is laid

Cheers,...
Dirty

So, I think I have something usable

If you are interesetd in trying it out, you can...

--> Download it here <--

Just run the setup.exe file and it should install. Also, it will prompt you whenever an update is available and you can then choose whether you want that update or skip it.

The UI is rather simple:


Fill in the parameters that define your rig, click "Calculate Envelope" and it will put 4 .csv files in "Saved Games/Rig-O-Meter" :


You can then open them in Excel to create an envelope plot. Use an x-y scatterplot for that!

As of now, it only calulates 100 points on the envelope per plot and it takes a few seconds for them to calculate. I will increase that number to ~500 per plot soon.

I have tried to provide users with meaningful error messages, but if you run into issues, let me know here and I will shed some light on it

Cheers,... Dirty

I managed to output the data directly into a .xlsx file that contiains a chart already created for the user That should make it much more user friendly.


Enjoy

I like the name Rigulyzer

can you get it to read the actual data from simtools and draw an image of the sim position live ?

Interesting idea, but this software is not aimed at SimTools. In fact it's not aimed at any motion cueing software.

It is just a design tool to help people decide on the dimensions of their rigs. I often heard people speculating whether a certain design choice would give them more or less of this or that DOF, myself included! Now you can enter the dimensions of your rig and the software will move it through it's full envelope to determine the limits.

It should be noted that (for now) it can only determine a point on the envelope by the max/min extension of the actuators. Other potentially limiting factors like U-joint angles are not taken into account.
Your U-jonits should anyways be designed in a way that they will never(!) limit the motion of the rig.

Internal collisions (rig/actuator) or external collisions (rig/wall) can be modelled and I'm doing it already, but the user interface does not reflect that, because it is a hassle to implement.

I have given it a graphical representation of the rig:


The software will auto update to this version some time next week...

Cheers,...

Dirty