I'm trying to make a small application in Flash (AS3) that will have several bodies with variable shape and size that will have force applied to them. I've been looking around for some good explanation of calculating center of mass/gravity, torque, angular momentum, and, I suppose, collision detection as well, though that's not necessary here.
Can anyone offer an explanation of Torque and the associated physics, as well as some suggestions on how to go about coding it?
thanks -Ted
I cannot give you a complete explanation of it, since it is pretty complicated. However, there is a introduction to this stuff in John J Craigs "Introduction to Robotics", which is the standard textbook for robotics. Almost all robotics lectures follow it, and so does Stanford with its course CS223A: http://www.stanford.edu/class/cs223a/.
You want to check the chapter Dynamics, which is around lecture 9, 10 or 11.
What you need is this http://hypertextbook.com/physics/mechanics/
But that's too much, especially Rotational Motion which explains Torque and Angular Momentum.
Coding: During run time if you know all values/physical parameters, then its a straight forward job. But if you plan to solve equations to find out some unknowns, thats going to make your life complicated.
Some formulas for you - http://downloadanswer.com/MechanicsFormulaSheet.aspx
Torque τ = r x F = r F sin θ
r is the magnitude of distance between force and a fixed point on body. F is the magnitude of force, θ is the angle between direction of force and direction of r
x is a vector cross product (both r and F are vectors) The direction of torque vector is 90 degrees to both r and F.
I'd head to gamedev.net, physics and motion come up quite often in game design, I'm sure someone on their forums would be able to assist.
(you might also find help in a flash implementation, not just the physics calculations)