We are trying to provide executables so you don't have to install ODE unless you want to change how the simulator works. We have Linux and Windows executables, and I will get a Mac executable.
Blocks1 is the first version of the simulator.
Design are useful programs to design structures.
To install these programs, download the zip files, expand them, and "cd" into the corresponding directories. See the notes.txt files in the directories for more information. You don't need to install ODE, say "make", or run Visual Studio unless you want to change how the simulator works. Just create more scene files like b1.txt and balls.txt. Run these programs from a (power) shell (aka command line interface).
The ODE code is on bitbucket. Download the latest version (currently ode-0.16.tar.gz).
tar -xvzf ode-0.16.tar.gz cd ode-0.16
In the directory (currently ode-0.16) type:
./configure make sudo make install
To check the installation, type:
cd ode/demo ./demo_crash
Check out the other demo programs in that directory.
You may need to install an X11 window system such as XQuartz. Follow the download and install instructions here.
You may need to enable xcode command line tools: Open a terminal window by going to Applications -> Utilities -> Terminal. Install 'Xcode Command Line Tools' by typing in your terminal:
xcode-select --install
The blocks Makefile has to be changed, specfically line 25 to:
LIBS = -L /usr/local/lib -lode -ldrawstuff -lpthread -framework GLUT -framework OpenGL -lm
Otherwise the instructions for installing on a Mac are the same as the Linux instructions above. You can type the instructions into a terminal window (Applications -> Utilities -> Terminal).
Copy the drawstuff include files and library into /usr/local/lib
sudo cp -r ./include/drawstuff /usr/local/includeode-0.13 sudo cp drawstuff/src/.libs/libdrawstuff.a /usr/local/lib
The INSTALL.txt file describes two approaches to compiling ODE. I could not get premake to work (section 1). Instead, I installed Cmake and use the approach described in section 5.
The downloaded ode-0.16.tar.gz file needs to uncompressed and files extracted. Winzip can do this. Google ".tar.gz windows" for instructions or other programs that can do it.
Once Cmake is installed and ODE downloaded, a shell (Power Shell in Windows 10) can be used to enter text commands. Assuming ode-0.16 was downloaded to c:, you can type:
cd c:\ cd ode-0.16 cd build cmake ..The key element of all this is the generation of the visual studio .vcproj files. To run a demo program, starting in ode-0.16/build/:
cd DEBUG ./debug_crash
Sourceforge documentation. This code documentation is useful, as is Googling the name of a subroutine. drawstuff,
A good project would be to use other simulators. For example: Bullet (Google "plank simulation tutorial" for more).