Sirikata Puzzle

The task is getting a high performance physics library into the javascript language where it can be used by any web application, including the open source virtual world system that we are constructing, sirikata.

Currently the closest match to such a system that we know of is the http://www.jiglibflash.com Jiglibflash is an actionscript3 based 3d physics library supporting rigid bodies, rag dolls and heightmaps. The other candidate library is the C++ bullet physics library, which is a mature library in C++, but might require a lot of rethinking to be ported to a scripting language.

The first task will be evaluating jiglibflash and benchmarking and understanding its performance and the applicability for a javascript based system. Part of this will be analyzing how the jiglib could live within a javascript webworker thread where dom access is restricted.

The second task will be to port the rigid body simulation to javascript and generate some simple demos for it using webGL, GLGE or other javascript-based rendering systems.

The third task is to port the rest of the library including rag dolls and height maps to javascript and test them with some appropriate demos.

The fourth task is to come up with an inter-thread API so that jiglibflash may be used WITHIN a webworker thread so it does not block the main (graphics) thread.

The final task is to incorporate COLLADA physics loading support so that COLLADA models from remote URI's may be simulated within the physics system.

Each of these, naturally, might be broken off from the rest and treated as a summer project. My project team is mostly on the West Coast, but I am here at Harvard and there are several other collaborators in other locations in the US.