I am a first year mechanical engineering student, studying statics, we are working on truss'' and friction. I am having a real hard time of this (although I did understand the simple vector / components/ moments) anyways I was wondering if anyone knew of a program or applet that I could use where I can input my forces / mag,dir, to caluculate moments, total vertical and horizontal components. If u can help that would be great thanks

Firstly:
This is a forum for math and physics in game development.
Please keep posts on-topic.

Now:
There is at least one program out there, the engineering students at my school use it.

If you can dig up a copy of qbasic, I imagine you could write your own that deals in pure numbers with little trouble.

If you can`t find QB, email me; I have it.

~V''lion


~V''lion

Bugle4d

I found a few though it has been awhile. I searched for trusses and bridges. One I think was a Java Applet you use online and the other you download. I would suggest starting at West Point. They seem to specialize in it and I think they have links to other sites.

quote:

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Original post by Vlion

If you can dig up a copy of qbasic, I imagine you could write your own that deals in pure numbers with little trouble.

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Straight from MS

Includes a lot more stuff than qbasic, really useful if you''re trying to revive a dead computer and you''re stuck with dos. Just run in it''s own dir, too many files for your desktop.

you wont be able to compile into an exe with that old version :E

Here''s qb45... its on my site atm, ill take it down later

http://thorin.soupfiction.net/qb45.zip

thanks for the replies, funny enough my math teacher send us a program the day after i sent this message - sorry about the subject i thought this was a school/homework site since i got the link from a math site, anyways thanks a lot

Hi,

Although this is a game development forum and the question is not on the topic of game development, the question is a fair one. And actually I think the answer could be very helpful to game developers implementing physics as well.

There is a software package called Interactive Physics, now published by MSC.Software, which can be used to graphically specify your forces, etc., and get resultant forces and moments. Its quite handy. The s/w cost if you buy it alone is $250 for a full license, but don''t panic yet! There is a free downloadable demo. And there is a textbook edition that is bound with some physics textbooks. It is more limited than the full version, but could suit your needs.

www.interactivephysics.com

You''ll have to email the point of contact on that website to find out which books bundle the textbook edition.

Graham Rhodes
Senior Scientist
Applied Research Associates, Inc.