Introduction

The Physics Abstraction Layer (PAL) provides a unified interface to a number of different physics engines. This enables the use of multiple physics engines within one application. It is not just a simple physics wrapper, but provides an extensible plug-in architecture for the physics system, as well as extended functionality for common simulation components.

PAL provides a number of benefits to game and simulation developers. First of all PAL is very easy to use, so you can easily integrate physics into your application. Secondly, it does not restrict you to one particular physics engine. This gives you more flexibility, allowing you to easily upgrade your physics system if you decide to pursue a commercial engine, select different engines for alternative platforms, or swap to another engine if the physics engine developers stop development and support for their engine. This flexibility allows you to choose the engine that gives you the best performance for your application. Finally, PAL has an extensive set of common features such as simulating different devices or loading physics configurations from XML, COLLADA and Scythe files.

PAL makes physics development FLEXIBLE, FAST and EASY.

The source code for PAL is available via SVN access to the sourceforge project.
You can also download a tar.gz of the latest SVN source code.

The most recent instructions for PAL are found on the wiki. The CMake install instructions are the current method for building PAL. Previous versions can be built with the premake windows install instructions provide a simple step by step process for configuring PAL for your system. For alternative platforms try the generic Linux/UNIX/MacOS install instructions instead.

Precompiled binary packages are no longer distributed. Please use the premake configuration system that is distributed with PAL.

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Features

PAL supports a large number of physics engines. It provides a unique interface for:

Physics Engines
- Box2D (experimental)
- Bullet
- ~~Dynamechs~~(deprecated)
- Havok (experimental)
- IBDS (experimental)
- JigLib
- ~~Meqon~~(deprecated)
- Newton
- ODE
- OpenTissue (experimental)
- PhysX (a.k.a Novodex, Ageia PhysX, nVidia PhysX)
- Simple Physics Engine (experimental)
- Tokamak
- TrueAxis
File Formats
- Collada
- Scythe
- ~~PAL XML~~(deprecated)
Collision subsystem
Solver subsystem (Multithreaded / Hardware acceleration)
Bodies (Static and Dynamic)
- Box
- Capsule
- Compound Bodies
- Convex
- Sphere
Geometries
- Box
- Capsule
- Convex Mesh
- Concave Mesh (Terrain)
- Height field (Terrain)
- Plane (Terrain)
- Sphere
Links
- Spherical (Ball and Socket) Link
- Revolute (Hinge) Link
- Prismatic (Slider) Link
- Generic 6DOF Link
Sensors
- Contact
- Compass (Angular position)
- GPS (Global Positioning System - Position)
- Gyroscope (Angular velocity)
- Inclinometer (Angular position)
- PSD (Position Sensitive Device - Ray casting)
- Sonar (Ray casting)
- Velocimeter (Linear velocity)
- Transponder (Distance between two objects)
Actuators
- Force actuator (Generic)
- DC Motor
- Servo Motor
- Hydrofoil
- Propeller
- Spring
Fluids
- Particle Fluids (SPH)
- Grid-Based Fluids (Dampened Shallow Wave)
- Buoyancy Force
- Drag & Lift Forces
Vehicles

PAL also features an extensive testing and benchmark suit for evaluating and visualizing dynamic simulation systems.

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Contact

The offical PAL website is at: pal.sourceforge.net. The PAL project page is also available from sourceforge.

You can post general questions to the PAL sourceforge forum, or you can contact Adrian Boeing directly from the Adrian Boeing web site.