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RobotLocomotion / drake

Model-based design and verification for robotics.
https://drake.mit.edu
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multibody: Upstream `ComputeCompositeInertia` from Anzu #10859

Open EricCousineau-TRI opened 5 years ago

EricCousineau-TRI commented 5 years ago

Follow-up from convos with @amcastro-tri and @RussTedrake

May relate #10851 (in that you have less book-keeping)

Question is: Should this be a free function, or yet another method in MultibodyPlant, among 100s of others?

EricCousineau-TRI commented 5 years ago

Ultimately, the methods I wanna upstream (in some form) are here: https://gist.github.com/EricCousineau-TRI/d32904bc29cb88d8594631f6e5167cda

sherm1 commented 5 years ago

Should this be a free function, or yet another method in MultibodyPlant, among 100s of others?

plant.ComputeCompositeInertia(context, bodies) is better than a free function IMO. For optimal performance the free function would have to delegate to a plant method anyway, since only the plant has a deep understanding of the exploitable tree topology. It is very common for multibody system classes to have a huge API and I've never seen that cause a problem. Doxygen grouping should help users find the right methods.