CollideableGroupType.java

/**
 * Copyright (c) 2003-2009, Xith3D Project Group all rights reserved.
 * 
 * Portions based on the Java3D interface, Copyright by Sun Microsystems.
 * Many thanks to the developers of Java3D and Sun Microsystems for their
 * innovation and design.
 * 
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 * modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:
 * 
 * Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice,
 * this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
 * 
 * Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice,
 * this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation
 * and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
 * 
 * Neither the name of the 'Xith3D Project Group' nor the names of its
 * contributors may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this
 * software without specific prior written permission.
 * 
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package org.xith3d.physics.collision;

/*
 * TODO: (Marvin) Amos, please check my followinf ideas/suggestions:
 * Maybe there should be an int getter to retrieve a type indicator to check.
 * Maybe there's a fixed set of possible SpaceTypes (not all necessarily
 * supported by the used pysics engine). So they could be cept in an enum.
 */

/**
 * A space type.
 * 
 * Could be simple, hash, quadtree, octree, whatever. It's used
 * mainly to determine collisions algorithms which are going to be
 * employed.
 * 
 * This class could be used in GUI tools, to get infos on space types
 * 
 * @author Amos Wenger (aka BlueSky)
 * @author Marvin Froehlich (aka Qudus)
 */
public abstract class CollideableGroupType
{
    /**
     * @return The Class, that the group type corresponds to.
     */
    public abstract Class<?> getGroupClass();
    
	/**
	 * @return the name of the space type, it is, the one used to
	 * refer to it, in CollisionEngine. All camel-case, please !
	 */
	public abstract String getName();
	
	/**
	 * @return a small description of how special is this space, and
	 * whatever extra features, it does have..
	 */
	public abstract String getInfo();
}