Version 2.0 is on the way

While I haven't been very active on the MOMDYN blog or social media lately, I'm glad to report I've been *very* active on the development side, and am happy to announce the biggest update yet: Version 2.0 for Android! So what makes this the biggest update yet? How about a completely overhauled and updated user interface. You can see an example in the image below; crisper graphics, brighter colors, more familiar design. On the left, the currently released version 1.7, on the right, the upcoming version 2.0.

As for the technical details, the interface has been re-written to use native Kotlin, heavily leveraging Material Design elements. This change will make everything feel a lot more natural, and performance more responsive and crash-free. Chaquopy is used to load the Python-based modeling engine. Lastly, in my favorite trick, the Google Filament physics-based-rendering engine is used for the 3D graphics. Want to get in on the beta testing (soon), drop me an email. I think you'll like it!

A Splash of Color - Happy Pride from MOMDYN!

Long time, no post. Been quite active with the MOMDYN updates, in fact, making things more efficient, and as of today, prettier. Check out the animation below with our newest feature: color specifications for bodies.

Version 1.6 - New Interface

An update to MOMDYN is now live on the App Store, and will be coming to Google Play in the next few days. Of note, the menu now shows up in a navigation drawer, and the welcome screen is tidied up, as you can see above. You can check out a demonstration of the update on Youtube, which I embedded after the jump. A few smaller technical changes and bug fixes as well, all-in-all should make for a useful update. Cheers!

Version 1.5 - New Spring Graphics, Legends, and Simplified Interfaces

 A fairly healthy batch of updates are coming in version 1.5 of MOMDYN. The first couple of changes you can see in the gif below. First, in the 3-D diagram you now get spring graphics, as has always existed in the 2-D diagram. Second, when you flip over to the plots in the report view, there is now a legend above each of them. If you tap one of the legend entries, you can also de-active or re-activate which lines to include in the plot.

Also new, the interfaces for particle and spring generation have been simplified. Where previously you would have to define a parameter in the classic interface, now you can enter numeric values, and the parameters will be automatically generated. So, a little bit less control over naming and descriptions, but generally one fewer step in getting to your end goal.

Hope this works well, and be sure to drop me a line if you have any suggestions that I can implement in future MOMDYN releases.

New Documentation Site and Youtube Video

Thought I should show a little love to the blog, it had been a while. Most notably in the last few weeks is I have been porting over the documentation to a nice new site developed using sphinx. I had already written most of my documentation in close to a reStructuredText format, so this has been a fairly straightforward transition, just working the little details now to get it just how I like it. The new site is linked from the help button, along with the two basic tutorials, as can be seen in the animation below.

Version 1.4 - Universal Joint

The latest MOMDYN release is on the way, will be in the stores in the next day or so. The universal joint is the newest joint in the app, which creates a frame with rotations about two axes in an Euler sequence. You can see this in the graphic above, which consists of two universal joints, a rigid translation, and two rigid body boxes. Note the large angular displacements where you can observe the relatively slow oscillation about the vertical (Y) axis, and faster oscillation about the horizontal (X) axis. 

Besides the new joint, I did a whole lot of refactoring and bug fixing in this release. Added a whole lot of test coverage, so while this may not be the most feature-rich update, but I also hope it will be a lot smoother running and crash-free. I plan for this to be a trend; not too many new features going, but a lot of refinement to make the existing features work well. If there's anything you would like to see in upcoming versions, or anything that I'd royally screwed up, I would love to hear it!

 

Merry Christmas!

 Love, MOMDYN! And if you care for the sweet Christmas Music, check out the video of our Christmas tree on Youtube.

Its been a great couple of months for us, after officially releasing back in late September, we crossed the 1,000 download mark just a couple of weeks ago. We're planning a lot of cool stuff for the New Year, Just to name a few:

• Improved docs and built-in tutorial
• Change the colors of objects in the touch interface
• Legends in the plots, and ability to manipulate
• Document rendering
• Kinematic constraints

What are you hoping to see?