Bullet Physics Simplest Collision Example

Question

I\'m trying to use Bullet Physics for collision detection only. I don\'t need it to move any objects for me or handle rendering with callbacks. I just want to update object loca

Answer 1

Minimal runnable example

A sphere falling and hitting the ground.

Collisions are detected and printed to stdout.

Gnuplot visualization:

The "collision" line goes to 1 whenever the sphere touches the ground.

And for smaller restitution coefficients (0.5 and 0.5):

Here the ball stops jumping completely and touches the ground continuously.

main.cpp

#include 
#include 
#include 

#include 

#define PRINTF_FLOAT "%7.3f"

constexpr float gravity = -10.0f;
constexpr float initialY = 10.0f;
constexpr float timeStep = 1.0f / 60.0f;
// TODO some combinations of coefficients smaller than 1.0
// make the ball go up higher / not lose height. Why?
constexpr float groundRestitution = 0.9f;
constexpr float sphereRestitution = 0.9f;
constexpr int maxNPoints = 500;

std::vector collisions;
void myTickCallback(btDynamicsWorld *dynamicsWorld, btScalar timeStep) {
    collisions.clear();
    int numManifolds = dynamicsWorld->getDispatcher()->getNumManifolds();
    for (int i = 0; i < numManifolds; i++) {
        btPersistentManifold *contactManifold = dynamicsWorld->getDispatcher()->getManifoldByIndexInternal(i);
        // TODO those are unused. What can be done with them?
        // I think they are the same objects as those in the main loop
        // dynamicsWorld->getCollisionObjectArray() and we could compare
        // the pointers to see which object collided with which.
        {
            const btCollisionObject *objA = contactManifold->getBody0();
            const btCollisionObject *objB = contactManifold->getBody1();
        }
        int numContacts = contactManifold->getNumContacts();
        for (int j = 0; j < numContacts; j++) {
            btManifoldPoint& pt = contactManifold->getContactPoint(j);
            const btVector3& ptA = pt.getPositionWorldOnA();
            const btVector3& ptB = pt.getPositionWorldOnB();
            const btVector3& normalOnB = pt.m_normalWorldOnB;
            collisions.push_back(ptA);
            collisions.push_back(ptB);
            collisions.push_back(normalOnB);
        }
    }
}

int main() {
    int i, j;

    btDefaultCollisionConfiguration *collisionConfiguration
            = new btDefaultCollisionConfiguration();
    btCollisionDispatcher *dispatcher = new btCollisionDispatcher(collisionConfiguration);
    btBroadphaseInterface *overlappingPairCache = new btDbvtBroadphase();
    btSequentialImpulseConstraintSolver* solver = new btSequentialImpulseConstraintSolver;
    btDiscreteDynamicsWorld *dynamicsWorld = new btDiscreteDynamicsWorld(
            dispatcher, overlappingPairCache, solver, collisionConfiguration);
    dynamicsWorld->setGravity(btVector3(0, gravity, 0));
    dynamicsWorld->setInternalTickCallback(myTickCallback);
    btAlignedObjectArray collisionShapes;

    // Ground.
    {
        btTransform groundTransform;
        groundTransform.setIdentity();
        groundTransform.setOrigin(btVector3(0, 0, 0));
        btCollisionShape* groundShape;
#if 1
        // x / z plane at y = -1.
        groundShape = new btStaticPlaneShape(btVector3(0, 1, 0), -1);
#else
        // A cube of width 10 at y = -6.
        // Does not fall because we won't call:
        // colShape->calculateLocalInertia
        // TODO: remove this from this example into a collision shape example.
        groundTransform.setOrigin(btVector3(0, -6, 0));
        groundShape = new btBoxShape(
                btVector3(btScalar(5.0), btScalar(5.0), btScalar(5.0)));

#endif
        collisionShapes.push_back(groundShape);
        btDefaultMotionState* myMotionState = new btDefaultMotionState(groundTransform);
        btRigidBody::btRigidBodyConstructionInfo rbInfo(0, myMotionState, groundShape, btVector3(0, 0, 0));
        btRigidBody* body = new btRigidBody(rbInfo);
        body->setRestitution(groundRestitution);
        dynamicsWorld->addRigidBody(body);
    }

    // Sphere.
    {
        btCollisionShape* colShape = new btSphereShape(btScalar(1.0));
        collisionShapes.push_back(colShape);
        btTransform startTransform;
        startTransform.setIdentity();
        startTransform.setOrigin(btVector3(0, initialY, 0));
        btVector3 localInertia(0, 0, 0);
        btScalar mass(1.0f);
        colShape->calculateLocalInertia(mass, localInertia);
        btDefaultMotionState *myMotionState = new btDefaultMotionState(startTransform);
        btRigidBody *body = new btRigidBody(btRigidBody::btRigidBodyConstructionInfo(
                mass, myMotionState, colShape, localInertia));
        body->setRestitution(sphereRestitution);
        dynamicsWorld->addRigidBody(body);
    }

    // Main loop.
    std::printf("step body x y z collision a b normal\n");
    for (i = 0; i < maxNPoints; ++i) {
        dynamicsWorld->stepSimulation(timeStep);
        for (j = dynamicsWorld->getNumCollisionObjects() - 1; j >= 0; --j) {
            btCollisionObject *obj = dynamicsWorld->getCollisionObjectArray()[j];
            btRigidBody *body = btRigidBody::upcast(obj);
            btTransform trans;
            if (body && body->getMotionState()) {
                body->getMotionState()->getWorldTransform(trans);
            } else {
                trans = obj->getWorldTransform();
            }
            btVector3 origin = trans.getOrigin();
            std::printf("%d %d " PRINTF_FLOAT " " PRINTF_FLOAT " " PRINTF_FLOAT " ",
                    i,
                    j,
                    float(origin.getX()),
                    float(origin.getY()),
                    float(origin.getZ()));
            if (collisions.empty()) {
                std::printf("0 ");
            } else {
                std::printf("1 ");
                // Yes, this is getting reprinted for all bodies when collisions happen.
                // It's just a quick and dirty way to visualize it, should be outside
                // of this loop normally.
                for (auto& v : collisions) {
                    std::printf(
                            PRINTF_FLOAT " " PRINTF_FLOAT " " PRINTF_FLOAT " ",
                            v.getX(), v.getY(), v.getZ());
                }
            }
            puts("");
        }
    }

    // Cleanup.
    for (i = dynamicsWorld->getNumCollisionObjects() - 1; i >= 0; --i) {
        btCollisionObject* obj = dynamicsWorld->getCollisionObjectArray()[i];
        btRigidBody* body = btRigidBody::upcast(obj);
        if (body && body->getMotionState()) {
            delete body->getMotionState();
        }
        dynamicsWorld->removeCollisionObject(obj);
        delete obj;
    }
    for (i = 0; i < collisionShapes.size(); ++i) {
        delete collisionShapes[i];
    }
    delete dynamicsWorld;
    delete solver;
    delete overlappingPairCache;
    delete dispatcher;
    delete collisionConfiguration;
    collisionShapes.clear();
}

main.gnuplot

#!/usr/bin/env gnuplot
set terminal png size 1024,1024
set output "main.png"
set key autotitle columnheader
plot 'main.dat' using 1:($2 == 1 ? $4 : 1/0), \
     '' using 1:($2 == 1 ? $6 : 1/0)

Compile and run:

sudo apt install libbullet-dev
g++ -ggdb3 -O3 -std=c++11 -Wall -Wextra -pedantic \
  $(pkg-config --cflags bullet) -o main.out main.cpp $(pkg-config --libs bullet)
./main.out > main.dat
gnuplot main.gnuplot

Code based on: http://www.bulletphysics.org/mediawiki-1.5.8/index.php

Version of this focused on distinguishing which object touched which object: https://gamedev.stackexchange.com/a/120881/25171

GitHub upstream: https://github.com/cirosantilli/cpp-cheat/blob/503a3b6487ccb75334798839b5ed912270446d14/bullet/ground_ball.cpp

The next thing you will want is a better visualization mechanism than gnuplot for the 3D shapes. The example browser is one possibility to look into: How to apply Bullet physics to drawn Opengl 3d shapes It would also be amazing if they had glTF output: https://www.khronos.org/gltf/

Tested on Bullet 2.88, Ubuntu 20.04.