| <--3D implementation | ^--systems--^ |
Right now, Masses take forever to stabilize -- to reach an equilibrium. While it's kinda neat to watch, it's not very useful when you're actually trying to read the data. I've played with different values of friction, different mass values, different spring values, and different gravitational constants, and I just can't find a set of values that work. Maybe I'm not "applying" Physics often enough, due to the discrete nature of the system?
It's the discreteness of this system that causes the other problem of extremes -- Masses that get too close or too far from each other. Because Physics happens in "ticks" -- that is, is applied at intervals instead of continuously -- the smoothness that a natural physical system has doesn't exist. If two Masses are pulled together by an especially strong Spring, or pushed together by other strong Masses, they may be so close at the next "tick" of the Physics engine that the force between them hits extraordinary heights. The two Masses are suddenly propelled from each other at an enormous rate, and now exist well outside the bounds of the Space. Then what happens if there's a Spring between them which now wants to snap these two Masses back together with an equivalently large force? Let me tell you, it doesn't look good.
The Collectors and Physics could use some interfaces as well. The Collector might have a dialog box for what file to read, what machine to ping, or a slider for how fast to collect data. The Physics engine might allow a user to change the gravitational constant, to play with friction, or to turn off the effect of Springs.
| <--3D implementation | ^--systems--^ |