Today we are presenting a new feature recently developed in uwsim: dredging. Now every object may be "buried" in sand to a percent of their height, configurable via XML. Furthermore buried objects may be "unearthed" using a dredge tool. This dredge tools are created in vehicles configured via XML setting its position and create an animation of the dredged particles using osgParticle. As an example we can see it in action unearthing a buried amphora, the dredge tool is placed in the gripper and we can see the desired path (green) and performed path (red).

To configure a buried object just an attributte in the object is needed stating the buried percent:

  <object buried="0.6">

and the dredge tool may be created using a DredgeTool device inside vehicles, for instance:

  <DredgeTool>
    <name>dredgeGripper</name>
    <target> end_effector</target>
    <offsetp>
      <x>0</x>
      <y>0</y>
      <z>0</z>
    </offsetp>
    <offsetr>
      <x>0</x>
      <y>0</y>
      <z>0</z>
    </offsetr>
  </DredgeTool>

Although this feature is already working in last git version, some fixes and enhancements are coming. As usual any bug report or comment can be done through the github project.