[Billiards-devel] Billiards 0.3.1 release candidate

[Dimitris Papavasiliou]

To whom it may concern (yes both of you),

I've updated the CVS of Billiards with the release candidate for version 0.3.1.  The only additional feature is a proper experimentation mode allowing for the setup and recording of repeated experiments carried out either manually or automatically.  To this end some new configuration parameters have been introduced, namely:

billiards.tipoffset:  This determines the distance of the cue tip from the cue ball when entering aiming mode.  This is not necessary for a manual shot but when the cue is fired automatically given a target speed, it may need some space to accelerate to this speed.

billiards.cuesetup:  This is the setup of the cue when entering aiming mode.  A vector value containing, in order: cue heading, cue elevation, tip sidespin and tip follow.  This can be used to set up the cue as needed for the given experiment so that you don't have to do it manually for each shot.

billiards.cuespeed:  The target speed of the cue.  If this is set to a number then shots are fired automatically and repeatedly by accelerating the cue to the given velocity.

In addition there are a couple of new hooks:

billiards.setuprun:  This is executed before a new run takes place and is give the number of the run as a parameter.  It can be used for bookkeeping or to set up the run by setting billiards.opening to place the balls and the aforementioned parameters to set up the cue.

billiards.recordrun: As above but executed at the end of each run.  Mainly necessary for bookkeeping.

Give it a try and let me know if it works as advertised and also if there are any other features you can think of that are necessary for experimentation.

Dimitris