Pooltool is alive and well (Wed, May 03, 2023, by evan) pooltool: 6
A brief update after a long hiatus
Links
Landing for the pooltool blog series
Pooltool is a general purpose billiards simulator crafted specifically for science and engineering (you can also play it as a game).
Its core design principles focus on speed, flexibility, and the ease of visualization and analysis. With an interactive 3D interface, a robust API, and extensive documentation, pooltool aims to be a systemic tool in billiards-related research. Continuously evolving through active maintenance and bolstered by a growing community, this vision for pooltool emphasizes not just its current capabilities, but also its potential for growth and adaptation within billiards simulation.
Much about pooltool has been blogged, particularly during its early days of development.
Blog summaries
Blog #1 - 04/21/2020
- I do a literature review on the physics of billiards
- I outline and explain the models I plan to use for each physical process
Blog #2 - 12/20/2020
- I research different shot evolution algorithms
- I discover the event-based shot evolution algorithm by Leckie and Greenspan
- I describe in honestly excruciating detail the ins and outs of the algorithm
Blog #3 - 03/25/2021
- I start pooltool
- I develop a prototypical pool simulator that can evolve shots according to a discrete time stepping algorithm, or the event-based algorithm
- I create a 2D, non-interactive visualization of simulated shots using pygame
Blog #4 - 08/11/2021
- I graduate to panda3d
- I render all essential objects and HUD (badly)
- I implement all foreseeable user controls
- I defined different game modes that the user can play (8-ball and 9-ball)
Blog #5 - 10/26/2021
- I learn blender
- I model a table, balls, a cue, and a room
- I implement a collision resolver so the cue doesn’t intersect with geometry
Blog #6 - 05/03/2023
- A general update with lots of gameplay footage
Blog posts for "pooltool"
Pooltool just underwent a massive graphics overhaul (Tue, Oct 26, 2021, by evan) pooltool: 5
I completely revamped the graphical look of pooltool and document my progress along the way
Pooltool is now an open source billiards video game rendered in 3D (Sat, Apr 17, 2021, by evan) pooltool: 4
Turning the simulator into an interactive, 3D game with panda3d
Creating a billiards simulator: the transition from equations to code (Thu, Mar 25, 2021, by evan) pooltool: 3
A preliminary implementation of pooltool that supports visualization with pygame
The algorithmic theory behind pool/billiards simulation (Sun, Dec 20, 2020, by evan) pooltool: 2
A dive into the algorithmic theory behind pool simulation
The physics of pool/billiards (Fri, Apr 24, 2020, by evan) pooltool: 1
A dive into the physics theory behind pool
