[Billiards-devel] Comparing billiards to other simulators

[François Gaumond]

Hi,

I have been trying out billiards and have added some script tweaks to be
able to specify shots via parameters instead of manually making them (If
someone is interested I can make them available).

My goal is to eventually compare billiards to other simulators (actually
it's only to poolfiz for the moment), and I think this should be
achieved by running a main program that runs the different simulators
depending on the options that the user chooses.

This approach seems kind of complicated to me although it would
ultimately be the most rewarding for side to side comparison. The thing
is, if I want to run billiards simulations through another application,
it will require a quite different approach from what billiards is made
to allow. I see two potential ways of doing it, and I'd like advice on
their feasibility.

1rst possibility: maybe I could start techne -c billiards.lua with
special options to specify the table configuration and shot parameters,
and maybe hook off the graphical output, either through invoking techne
methods with my C++ code or through a script that's called from my
application and then gives me the results...

2nd possibility: maybe I could run billiards separately and my
application could exchange information and commands through billiards'
http server.

What do you think?

Thanks,
François Gaumond