Open Dynamics Engine

The Open Dynamics Engine (ODE) is a physics engine written in C/C++. Its two main components are a rigid body dynamics simulation engine and a collision detection engine.^[3] It is free software licensed both under the BSD license and the LGPL.

Open Dynamics Engine

Developer(s)	Russell Smith
Initial release	May 8, 2001; 24 years ago (2001-05-08)
Stable release	0.16.6 / January 16, 2025; 3 months ago (2025-01-16)[1]
Repository	bitbucket.org/odedevs/ode
Written in	C/C++
Operating system	Platform independent
Type	Physics engine
License	BSD[2]
Website	www.ode.org

A simple vehicle driving over a ramp. This demo is distributed with the ODE source code (demo_buggy).

A collision with many objects. This demo is distributed with the ODE source code (demo_crash).

ODE was started in 2001 and has already been used in many applications and games, such as Assetto Corsa, BloodRayne 2, Call of Juarez, S.T.A.L.K.E.R., Titan Quest, World of Goo, X-Moto and OpenSimulator.

Overview

The Open Dynamics Engine is used for simulating the dynamic interactions between bodies in space. It is not tied to any particular graphics package although it includes a basic one called drawstuff.^[4] It supports several geometries: box, sphere, capsule (cylinder capped with hemispheres), triangle mesh, cylinder and heightmap.

Simulation

Higher level environments that allow non-programmers access to ODE include Player Project, Webots, Opensimulator, anyKode Marilou and CoppeliaSim.

ODE is a popular choice for robotics simulation applications, with scenarios such as mobile robot locomotion^[5][6] and simple grasping. ODE has some drawbacks in this field, for example the method of approximating friction and poor support for joint-damping.^[7]

See also

• Free and open-source software portal
• Video games portal

• OPAL – the Open Physics Abstraction Layer, originally built on top of ODE
• Physics Abstraction Layer – The original Physics Abstraction Layer
• Newton Game Dynamics
• Bullet – another open source physics engine used in commercial games and movies
• Chipmunk – a similar physics engine intended for 2D applications
• Vortex (software)
• Project Chrono