Rope vs Cloth

[arkanis]

So I've purchased Rope, Cloth, and Fluid as I have use cases in my simulator project that will need all of them.

A simple question here, for a Tourniquet like this: 



Would there be any advantage to using cloth vs rope? They are not very flexible on the shorter axis, mostly just on the longer axis, so I'm thinking it might be computationally less expensive to treat it as a rope but I don't really know the underpinnings of all the systems.

Thanks.

[josemendez]

Ropes do not model torsion, and having a single particle along the longer axis, you would not be able to control the tourniquet so that is flat on the surface of the limb.

Rods do model torsion, but particles are still perfectly spherical so you wouldn't get correct orientation out of collision detection.

Cloth is the only viable option here. You need at least two rows of particles along the long axis of the tourniquet for it to behave appropriately.

[arkanis]

Ropes do not model torsion, and having a single particle along the longer axis, you would not be able to control the tourniquet so that is flat on the surface of the limb.

Rods do model torsion, but particles are still perfectly spherical so you wouldn't get correct orientation out of collision detection.

Cloth is the only viable option here. You need at least two rows of particles along the long axis of the tourniquet for it to behave appropriately.

Thank you for your insight. When you explain it is makes perfect sense  I hadn't considered the torsion and rotation of a single width chain of spheres.