Elements

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Elements banner1.jpg


About

The Elements project is all about free and easy 2D physics for python -- with main attention on:

  1. An easy-to-use, fast 2D physics API
    • for the Chipmunk 2d physics engine (with pymunk ctypes bindings)
    • and maybe soon for the box2d physics engine
  2. Examples and documentation on how to use the API
  3. Providing the examples as bundles, as they are already interesting and fun
  4. Speed optimization (also with an eye on the XO laptop :)
  5. Development of ideas for education and playful-learning


Elements.zip (338 kb) | Elements.xo (195 kb) | Documentation | Browse Source


More Informations

  • IRC: #elements on irc.freenode.net
  • Project started by Chris Hager, March 2008. Source-Code is GPL licensed - so do with it what you want! Even eat it :)
  • The Elements project derived from pymunx, which started as examples for pymunk and is growing up to a real physics api for python
  • The 2D physics is handled by the chipmunk physics engine (written in C by ...)
  • Communication to the chipmunk library is done via the pymunk ctypes bindings (by Victor Blomqvist.)
  • A lively and open development and support team is having fun improving and helping out :)
  • Features: fast, easy to use, segments, polygons, circles, colissions, variable gravity, density, mass, friction, elasticity, inertia, impulses, screenshots, screencasts, cross-platform, entertaining, fascinating, ...
  • Limitations which will be implemented soon: Joints, Grouped Elements and Non-convex Polygons. Screencast encoding currently works only in linux with mencoder installed.


Screenshots

(from Elements/Screenshots)

Screenshot1.png Screenshot2.png

Screenshot3.png Screenshot4.png


Videos

Downloads


Documentations


Examples

http://www.linuxuser.at/Elements/demos Examples


Pygame Example

The typical usage in pygame can look like this:

      import pygame
      from pygame.locals import *
      from pygame.color import *   

      from elements import *
       
      pygame.init()
      screen = pygame.display.set_mode((800, 800))
      clock = pygame.time.Clock()

      world = elements()
      world.add_wall((100, 200), (300, 200))
         
      # Main Game Loop:
      while running:
         # Event Handling
         # Maybe calling world.add_ball(event.pos) or world.add_square(event.pos)
         # ...

         screen.fill((255,255,255))

         # Update & Draw World
         world.update()
         world.draw(screen)

         # Flip Display
         pygame.display.flip()
          
         # Try to stay at 50 FPS
         clock.tick(50)