Temperature in degrees isn't really important, but temperature by color is a hallmark of smithing.  While various colors represent the temperature, they aren't exact.  What they do, however, is tell you where you need to be at in the forging process.  Black heat, red heat, orange heat, yellow heat...

 

One of the critical elements, imo, would be to know and show the angle of the hammer's face at the moment of impact with the hot metal.  The angle of the hammer directly affects the way the metal moves.

This was an awesome idea, I wonder what happened to it?
I'd love to do some desktop smithing, it'd be a great way to work out project ideas while out of the forge.

Maybe Minecraft happened and pulled the rug.

I would absolutely want to see something interactive like this in a Minecraft-like game, tho..

your physics model is what will make or break your sim.

mass of hammer;velocity of hammer;mass of iron;shape of iron [sq/round/rectangular]; length of heat [distance as well as time]; feedback to controller will differ as all the above change.

for simplicity, you could just use a square hammer face which strikes vertically down.

then add the angle of deflection of the hammer face relative to the plane of the anvil face.as it strikes the hot iron. these angles are infinite, but you could choose x# of angles as a sorta constant.

the face of the anvil would be your primary reference plane.

and this would be the basics.

and we have not even began with the air mass/voluum wrt coal. the properties of coal as affected by the above are avalable, perhaps, from the engineer staff at a coal mine.

another advisor for the team

once you come up with a model of the above, adding tools should not be too difficult.

I think when iron is at a particular temp, it has a certain plasticity. you must know this so you can figure out where the hot iron moves to.

so add a metals engineer to your team.

good luck

Hmm, how about adding the temperatures of the anvil and surrounding air and their effect on the changing temperature and plasticity of the iron as it cools from its original heat.  Also, factoring carbon and alloy content on plasticity, and the varying temperature of the iron from when it leaves the forge till it reaches the anvil, due to starting temperature, and time to reach anvil, etc. ... and degree of convexity of the face of the hammer and the shape of the hammer's edges.  

The Wii controller spews the data from the accelerometers at random times so using standard signal processing algorithms is out of the question. All you can expect to get from the Wii controller is that you are hammering and an idea whether it is fast or slow. Also MEMS accelerometers are inherently noisy so it is difficult to get good or even ok spacial accuracy, think of the amount of error after integrating twice (once for velocity and twice for distance). Gravity is also a big impediment to using dead reckoning for localization when using an accelerometer alone. I would ditch this approach and explore using two or three good cameras and opencv.

 

brad

of course the essential controller would be a mini hammer and anvil with a usb3 connector on the back of both with plug and play abilities for Win 8.1 pro.

poof its done.

'course you mac guys are SOL 'cause win beats mac hands down for gaming.

if you go graphics and use photoshop, then all bets are off.

enjoy

this is the reason i STOPPED PLAYING VIDEO GAMES. I COULD DO THIS IRL AND HAVE SOMETHING FOREVER. LIFE WASTING BS.

 

rage complete

One more point I have a friend that teaches welding at a collage I asked him about the welding simulation program I had read about he said that you could master the program but when it came to real life application it was nothing like the real thing and students had to learn all over again.

One more point I have a friend that teaches welding at a collage I asked him about the welding simulation program I had read about he said that you could master the program but when it came to real life application it was nothing like the real thing and students had to learn all over again.

I have my 1" unlimited certs for stick and Innersheild and a guy came to a competition I was in with the simulator...I scored a 63%...haha That is a failed weld as far as the simulation is concerned and I have welds on bridges and skyscrapers all over boston. The simulators are nothing like the real thing...or maybe just stay off the bridges in Boston haha.

-Crazy Ivan

1 more reason not to trust bridges.

I have looked at your idea for the simulation and I think it is a very cool idea for a game. I think you should try to do the following;

I have made a sword or two and I think you should make it so the "simulated black smith" can fold the steel over on itself while forging then beat the steels together to make the sword stronger

You can give them the option to give their sword designs or not. (I will give examples later of such designs.)

also after the "gamer" is done you could make it so they can test it for as long as they want, when they are done they just have to hit a button on the bottom of the screen that says finish and it can give them the chance to make another.

What do I know? It all went wrong for me when, reading his first and only post he mentioned the word 'ingot' generally known as a lump of metal which has been cast. Enough said.

As a programmer and hobby blacksmith, I find this project really interesting.  I don't have much to add, the previous replies sum it up really well.  Would this be in 3D, and would you use a mesh deformation physics simulation package?  

The last post by the original poster of this thread last visited in 2008, I don't think it went to far from just the dream stage, ?????

Well, then, the idea still stands for anyone who wants to attempt it. With all the new Virtual Reality headsets, it could be a nice game by itself. Who wants to start a "kickstarter"?