Can the exported geometries of two brick solids be combined into one geometry?

I am joining two Simscape multibody Brick solids together using a rigid transform to form a single solid rigid unit. I would like to combine the exported geometries of both brick solids into a single geometry and run it to a Spacial Contact Force block. An identical conjoined brick solid would connect to the opposing port.

Now I know I could just use 4 Spacial Contact Force blocks to run between the 4 different Exported Geometry combinations:

G1 of U1 <-> G1 of U2, (Geometry1 of Unit 1 to Geo 1 of Unit 2, )

G2 of U1 <-> G1 of U2,

G1 of U1 <-> G2 of U2,

G2 of U1 <-> G2 of U2,

But this Starts getting messy really fast as the number of units and bricks per unit increases.

Is there any way to combine exported geometries, or would the best way be to create the Unit is Solidworks and bring into Simscape as a singular unit?

Thanks in advance.

John

Answer 1

[Steve Miller]

Hi John - the Spatial Contact Force block connects unique pieces of geometry, so if you have four unique bricks that form two distinct solids, you would (as you determined) need four Spatial Contact Force blocks to handle those contacts. You could use the Point Cloud block to reduce the number of Spatial Contact Force blocks you need.

--Steve