Continuing the preview of my FITC Toronto presentation, the following screenshot is taken from the AS3/Flex 2-link IK demo. When IK is applied to limbs in a rig, it is generally the case that a bone chain is linked forward of the chain whose IK solution is currently sought.
The leftmost image indicates the default position of the rig, consisting of a two-bone arm chain and a Hand connector. The Hand is linked to the arm chain. The colored wedges illustrate the lower and upper rotational limits of each bone. As the target is moved, the visual representation of the second bone’s limits are updated (the root bone is oriented to the positive x-axis).
Notice that the Hand connector maintains proper orientation throughout the solution. At the end of each solution step, the Chain class invalidate() method is called. This tells the Chain instance that the position and orientation of the end effector has changed, meaning that the position and orientation of all Chains/Connectors linked forward are no longer valid. The invalidate() method makes the appropriate adjustments.
In addition to an alpha version of the AS 3 rigging classes, all Flex demos (MXML files) are provided with the code distribution for this talk. See you in Toronto!
The Algorithmist 
Jim – this super cool. Any chance we could see a alpha demo on your blog for those of use who can’t make it to FITC? 🙂 🙂
John:
Starting in the May-June time frame, I will begin a new TechNote series on character animation and rigging. The rigging classes and parametric curve library are all part of the Singularity package and will be available for download from my site.
thanks!
– jim