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I'm currently working on a pice of software that interpolates data from existing measurements and makes estimates from this. The data is arranged in a 2D environment where we've got a wind speed on one axis and a wind angle on the other and each point represents a target speed.
For an example I've got three points:
p1: wind speed 6 knots, wind angle 90 degrees => target speed 5
p2: wind speed 6 knots, wind angle 70 degrees => target speed 6
p3: wind speed 8 knots, wind angle 70 degrees => target speed 7
Now I want to interpolate the point of wind speed 6 knots and wind angle 80 degrees. I would like an algorithm that uses all of these points and gives me an average of these three points.
Ages ago I made a 3D renderer and I think I used a technique there to color a polygon and I think this can be useful in this scenario. All the examples that I've found on the internet rely on OpenGL and such and that won't work for me as I want this solution to be pure c/c++ for an embedded environment. Since i run in an embedded environment I've got limited resources mainly in terms of program size.
Do any of you guys have any pointers to help me get past this problem? Thanks!
After diving into my old calculus i found a mathematical answer to this problem.
Given that I've got three points in the space I can form a plane:
P: (Px, Py, Pz)
Q: (Qx, Qy, Qz)
R: (Rx, Ry, Rz)
These points and the math described in here http://tutorial.math.lamar.edu/Classes/CalcIII/EqnsOfPlanes.aspx allowed me to move forward.
Vector(PQ) = (PQx, PQy, PQz)
Vector(PR) = (PRx, PRy, PRz)
Now I apply the cross product to these two vectors and this gives the normal vector of the plane
(Cross product math described here: http://tutorial.math.lamar.edu/Classes/CalcII/CrossProduct.aspx#Vectors_CrossProd_Ex2)
Vector(PQ) x Vector(PR) = Vector(PQy * PRz - PQz * PRy,
PQz * PRx - PQx * PRz,
PQx * PRy - PQy * PRx)
So, this is what I've got as a plane equation, without respect to that it has to pass trough one of the points:
x(PQy * PRz - PQz * PRy) + y(PQz * PRx - PQx * PRz) + z(PQx * PRy - PQy * PRx) = 0
To get the full equation of my plane that passes trough all of the points, I have to apply one point, as described in example 1 in the first link.
x(PQy * PRz - PQz * PRy) + y(PQz * PRx - PQx * PRz) + z(PQx * PRy - PQy * PRx) =
Px(PQy * PRz - PQz * PRy) + Py(PQz * PRx - PQx * PRz) + Pz(PQx * PRy - PQy * PRx)
To apply my example to this formula I get the following equation:
P: (90, 6, 5)
Q: (70, 6, 6)
R: (70, 8, 7)
Vector(PQ) = (20, 0, -1)
Vector(PR) = (20, -2, -2)
Cross product of these gives me this formula:
-2x + 20y - 40z = 0
If I now apply the point P to this I can get the full equatio of my plane:
-2x + 20y - 40z = -2 * 90 + 20 * 6 - 40 * 5
-2x + 20y - 40z = -260
z = (-2x + 20y + 260) / 40
As I seek the z value where x = 6 and y = 80 I put these values into the equation.
x = 80
y = 6
z = (-2 * 80 + 20 * 6 + 260) / 40
z = 5.5
5.5 is the expected answer for this example as it exactly in the middle of P and Q.
The final implementation of this algorithm:
float TargetSpeed::PlaneInterpolation(Point3D p, Point3D q, Point3D r, int x, int y)
{
Point3D pq = Point3D(p.X - q.X, p.Y - q.Y, p.Z - q.Z);
Point3D pr = Point3D(p.X - r.X, p.Y - r.Y, p.Z - r.Z);
Point3D n = Point3D(pq.Y * pr.Z - pq.Z * pr.Y,
pq.Z * pr.X - pq.X * pr.Z,
pq.X * pr.Y - pq.Y * pr.X);
float d = n.X * p.X + n.Y * p.Y + n.Z * p.Z;
float z = (d - n.X * (float)x - n.Y * (float)y) / n.Z;
return z;
}
Is the data on a regular grid? If so, I would just use something like linear interpolation. If not, then look at something like qhull.
I am drawing hollow ellipse using opengl. I calculate vertices in c++ code using standard ellipse formula. In fragment shader i just assign color to each fragment. The ellipse that i see on the screen has thinner line width on the sharper curves as compared to that where curve is not that sharp. So question is, how to make line-width consistent across the entire parameter of ellipse? Please see the image below:
C++ code :
std::vector<float> BCCircleHelper::GetCircleLine(float centerX, float centerY, float radiusX, float radiusY, float lineWidth, int32_t segmentCount)
{
auto vertexCount = (segmentCount + 1) * 2;
auto floatCount = vertexCount * 3;
std::vector<float> array(floatCount);
const std::vector<float>& data = GetCircleData (segmentCount);
float halfWidth = lineWidth * 0.5f;
for (int32_t i = 0; i < segmentCount + 1; ++i)
{
float sin = data [i * 2];
float cos = data [i * 2 + 1];
array [i * 6 + 0] = centerX + sin * (radiusX - halfWidth);
array [i * 6 + 1] = centerY + cos * (radiusY - halfWidth);
array [i * 6 + 3] = centerX + sin * (radiusX + halfWidth);
array [i * 6 + 4] = centerY + cos * (radiusY + halfWidth);
array [i * 6 + 2] = 0;
array [i * 6 + 5] = 0;
}
return std::move(array);
}
const std::vector<float>& BCCircleHelper::GetCircleData(int32_t segmentCount)
{
int32_t floatCount = (segmentCount + 1) * 2;
float segmentAngle = static_cast<float>(M_PI * 2) / segmentCount;
std::vector<float> array(floatCount);
for (int32_t i = 0; i < segmentCount + 1; ++i)
{
array[i * 2 + 0] = sin(segmentAngle * i);
array[i * 2 + 1] = cos(segmentAngle * i);
}
return array;
}
Aiming this:
The problem is likely that your fragments are basically line segments radiating from the center of the ellipse.
If you draw a line, from the center of the ellipse through the ellipse you've drawn, at any point on the perimeter, you could probably convince yourself that the distance covered by that red line is in fact the width that you're after (roughly, since you're working at low spatial resolution; somewhat pixelated). But since this is an ellipse, that distance is not perpendicular to the path being traced. And that's the problem. This works great for circles, because a ray from the center is always perpendicular to the circle. But for these flattened ellipses, it's very oblique!
How to fix it? Can you draw circles at each point on the ellipse, instead of line segments?
If not, you might need to recalculate what it means to be that thick when measured at that oblique angle - it's no longer your line width, may require some calculus, and a bit more trigonometry.
Ok, so a vector tangent to the curve described by
c(i) = (a * cos(i), b * sin(i))
is
c'(i) = (- a * sin(i), b * cos(i))
(note that this is not a unit vector). The perpendicular to this is
c'perp = (b * cos(i), a * sin(i))
You should be able to convince yourself that this is true by computing their dot product.
Lets calculate the magnitude of c'perp, and call it k for now:
k = sqrt(b * b * cos(i) * cos(i) + a * a * sin(i) * sin(i))
So we go out to a point on the ellipse (c(i)) and we want to draw a segement that's perpendicular to the curve - that means we want to add on a scaled version of c'perp. The scaling is to divide by the magnitude (k), and then multiply by half your line width. So the two end points are:
P1 = c(i) + halfWidth * c'perp / k
P2 = c(i) - halfWidth * c'perp / k
I haven't tested this, but I'm pretty sure it's close. Here's the geometry you're working with:
--
Edit:
So the values for P1 and P2 that I give above are end-points of a line-segment that's perpendicular to the ellipse. If you really wanted to continue with just altering the radiusX and radiusY values the way you were doing, you could do this. You just need to figure out what the 'Not w' length is at each angle, and use half of this value in place of halfWidth in radiusX +/- halfWidth and radiusY +/- halfwidth. I leave that bit of geometry as an exercise for the reader.
Are there any tutorials out there that explain how I can draw a sphere in OpenGL without having to use gluSphere()?
Many of the 3D tutorials for OpenGL are just on cubes. I have searched but most of the solutions to drawing a sphere are to use gluSphere(). There is also a site that has the code to drawing a sphere at this site but it doesn't explain the math behind drawing the sphere. I have also other versions of how to draw the sphere in polygon instead of quads in that link. But again, I don't understand how the spheres are drawn with the code. I want to be able to visualize so that I could modify the sphere if I need to.
One way you can do it is to start with a platonic solid with triangular sides - an octahedron, for example. Then, take each triangle and recursively break it up into smaller triangles, like so:
Once you have a sufficient amount of points, you normalize their vectors so that they are all a constant distance from the center of the solid. This causes the sides to bulge out into a shape that resembles a sphere, with increasing smoothness as you increase the number of points.
Normalization here means moving a point so that its angle in relation to another point is the same, but the distance between them is different.
Here's a two dimensional example.
A and B are 6 units apart. But suppose we want to find a point on line AB that's 12 units away from A.
We can say that C is the normalized form of B with respect to A, with distance 12. We can obtain C with code like this:
#returns a point collinear to A and B, a given distance away from A.
function normalize(a, b, length):
#get the distance between a and b along the x and y axes
dx = b.x - a.x
dy = b.y - a.y
#right now, sqrt(dx^2 + dy^2) = distance(a,b).
#we want to modify them so that sqrt(dx^2 + dy^2) = the given length.
dx = dx * length / distance(a,b)
dy = dy * length / distance(a,b)
point c = new point
c.x = a.x + dx
c.y = a.y + dy
return c
If we do this normalization process on a lot of points, all with respect to the same point A and with the same distance R, then the normalized points will all lie on the arc of a circle with center A and radius R.
Here, the black points begin on a line and "bulge out" into an arc.
This process can be extended into three dimensions, in which case you get a sphere rather than a circle. Just add a dz component to the normalize function.
If you look at the sphere at Epcot, you can sort of see this technique at work. it's a dodecahedron with bulged-out faces to make it look rounder.
I'll further explain a popular way of generating a sphere using latitude and longitude (another
way, icospheres, was already explained in the most popular answer at the time of this writing.)
A sphere can be expressed by the following parametric equation:
F(u, v) = [ cos(u)*sin(v)*r, cos(v)*r, sin(u)*sin(v)*r ]
Where:
r is the radius;
u is the longitude, ranging from 0 to 2π; and
v is the latitude, ranging from 0 to π.
Generating the sphere then involves evaluating the parametric function at fixed intervals.
For example, to generate 16 lines of longitude, there will be 17 grid lines along the u axis, with a step of
π/8 (2π/16) (the 17th line wraps around).
The following pseudocode generates a triangle mesh by evaluating a parametric function
at regular intervals (this works for any parametric surface function, not just spheres).
In the pseudocode below, UResolution is the number of grid points along the U axis
(here, lines of longitude), and VResolution is the number of grid points along the V axis
(here, lines of latitude)
var startU=0
var startV=0
var endU=PI*2
var endV=PI
var stepU=(endU-startU)/UResolution // step size between U-points on the grid
var stepV=(endV-startV)/VResolution // step size between V-points on the grid
for(var i=0;i<UResolution;i++){ // U-points
for(var j=0;j<VResolution;j++){ // V-points
var u=i*stepU+startU
var v=j*stepV+startV
var un=(i+1==UResolution) ? endU : (i+1)*stepU+startU
var vn=(j+1==VResolution) ? endV : (j+1)*stepV+startV
// Find the four points of the grid
// square by evaluating the parametric
// surface function
var p0=F(u, v)
var p1=F(u, vn)
var p2=F(un, v)
var p3=F(un, vn)
// NOTE: For spheres, the normal is just the normalized
// version of each vertex point; this generally won't be the case for
// other parametric surfaces.
// Output the first triangle of this grid square
triangle(p0, p2, p1)
// Output the other triangle of this grid square
triangle(p3, p1, p2)
}
}
The code in the sample is quickly explained. You should look into the function void drawSphere(double r, int lats, int longs):
void drawSphere(double r, int lats, int longs) {
int i, j;
for(i = 0; i <= lats; i++) {
double lat0 = M_PI * (-0.5 + (double) (i - 1) / lats);
double z0 = sin(lat0);
double zr0 = cos(lat0);
double lat1 = M_PI * (-0.5 + (double) i / lats);
double z1 = sin(lat1);
double zr1 = cos(lat1);
glBegin(GL_QUAD_STRIP);
for(j = 0; j <= longs; j++) {
double lng = 2 * M_PI * (double) (j - 1) / longs;
double x = cos(lng);
double y = sin(lng);
glNormal3f(x * zr0, y * zr0, z0);
glVertex3f(r * x * zr0, r * y * zr0, r * z0);
glNormal3f(x * zr1, y * zr1, z1);
glVertex3f(r * x * zr1, r * y * zr1, r * z1);
}
glEnd();
}
}
The parameters lat defines how many horizontal lines you want to have in your sphere and lon how many vertical lines. r is the radius of your sphere.
Now there is a double iteration over lat/lon and the vertex coordinates are calculated, using simple trigonometry.
The calculated vertices are now sent to your GPU using glVertex...() as a GL_QUAD_STRIP, which means you are sending each two vertices that form a quad with the previously two sent.
All you have to understand now is how the trigonometry functions work, but I guess you can figure it out easily.
If you wanted to be sly like a fox you could half-inch the code from GLU. Check out the MesaGL source code (http://cgit.freedesktop.org/mesa/mesa/).
See the OpenGL red book: http://www.glprogramming.com/red/chapter02.html#name8
It solves the problem by polygon subdivision.
My example how to use 'triangle strip' to draw a "polar" sphere, it consists in drawing points in pairs:
const float PI = 3.141592f;
GLfloat x, y, z, alpha, beta; // Storage for coordinates and angles
GLfloat radius = 60.0f;
int gradation = 20;
for (alpha = 0.0; alpha < GL_PI; alpha += PI/gradation)
{
glBegin(GL_TRIANGLE_STRIP);
for (beta = 0.0; beta < 2.01*GL_PI; beta += PI/gradation)
{
x = radius*cos(beta)*sin(alpha);
y = radius*sin(beta)*sin(alpha);
z = radius*cos(alpha);
glVertex3f(x, y, z);
x = radius*cos(beta)*sin(alpha + PI/gradation);
y = radius*sin(beta)*sin(alpha + PI/gradation);
z = radius*cos(alpha + PI/gradation);
glVertex3f(x, y, z);
}
glEnd();
}
First point entered (glVertex3f) is as follows the parametric equation and the second one is shifted by a single step of alpha angle (from next parallel).
Although the accepted answer solves the question, there's a little misconception at the end. Dodecahedrons are (or could be) regular polyhedron where all faces have the same area. That seems to be the case of the Epcot (which, by the way, is not a dodecahedron at all). Since the solution proposed by #Kevin does not provide this characteristic I thought I could add an approach that does.
A good way to generate an N-faced polyhedron where all vertices lay in the same sphere and all its faces have similar area/surface is starting with an icosahedron and the iteratively sub-dividing and normalizing its triangular faces (as suggested in the accepted answer). Dodecahedrons, for instance, are actually truncated icosahedrons.
Regular icosahedrons have 20 faces (12 vertices) and can easily be constructed from 3 golden rectangles; it's just a matter of having this as a starting point instead of an octahedron. You may find an example here.
I know this is a bit off-topic but I believe it may help if someone gets here looking for this specific case.
Python adaptation of #Constantinius answer:
lats = 10
longs = 10
r = 10
for i in range(lats):
lat0 = pi * (-0.5 + i / lats)
z0 = sin(lat0)
zr0 = cos(lat0)
lat1 = pi * (-0.5 + (i+1) / lats)
z1 = sin(lat1)
zr1 = cos(lat1)
glBegin(GL_QUAD_STRIP)
for j in range(longs+1):
lng = 2 * pi * (j+1) / longs
x = cos(lng)
y = sin(lng)
glNormal(x * zr0, y * zr0, z0)
glVertex(r * x * zr0, r * y * zr0, r * z0)
glNormal(x * zr1, y * zr1, z1)
glVertex(r * x * zr1, r * y * zr1, r * z1)
glEnd()
void draw_sphere(float r)
{
float pi = 3.141592;
float di = 0.02;
float dj = 0.04;
float db = di * 2 * pi;
float da = dj * pi;
for (float i = 0; i < 1.0; i += di) //horizonal
for (float j = 0; j < 1.0; j += dj) //vertical
{
float b = i * 2 * pi; //0 to 2pi
float a = (j - 0.5) * pi; //-pi/2 to pi/2
//normal
glNormal3f(
cos(a + da / 2) * cos(b + db / 2),
cos(a + da / 2) * sin(b + db / 2),
sin(a + da / 2));
glBegin(GL_QUADS);
//P1
glTexCoord2f(i, j);
glVertex3f(
r * cos(a) * cos(b),
r * cos(a) * sin(b),
r * sin(a));
//P2
glTexCoord2f(i + di, j);//P2
glVertex3f(
r * cos(a) * cos(b + db),
r * cos(a) * sin(b + db),
r * sin(a));
//P3
glTexCoord2f(i + di, j + dj);
glVertex3f(
r * cos(a + da) * cos(b + db),
r * cos(a + da) * sin(b + db),
r * sin(a + da));
//P4
glTexCoord2f(i, j + dj);
glVertex3f(
r * cos(a + da) * cos(b),
r * cos(a + da) * sin(b),
r * sin(a + da));
glEnd();
}
}
One way is to make a quad that faces the camera and write a vertex and fragment shader that renders something that looks like a sphere. You could use equations for a circle/sphere that you can find on the internet.
One nice thing is that the silhouette of a sphere looks the same from any angle. However, if the sphere is not in the center of a perspective view, then it would appear perhaps more like an ellipse. You could work out the equations for this and put them in the fragment shading. Then the light shading needs to changed as the player moves, if you do indeed have a player moving in 3D space around the sphere.
Can anyone comment on if they have tried this or if it would be too expensive to be practical?
I must be the worst person on the planet when it comes to math because i can't figure out how to change this circle radius:
from math import *
posx, posy = 0,0
sides = 32
glBegin(GL_POLYGON)
for i in range(100):
cosine=cos(i*2*pi/sides)+posx
sine=sin(i*2*pi/sides)+posy
glVertex2f(cosine,sine)
I'm not entirely sure how or why this becomes a circle because the *2 confuses me a bit.
Note that this is done in Pyglet under Python2.6 calling OpenGL libraries.
Followed Example 4-1: http://fly.cc.fer.hr/~unreal/theredbook/chapter04.html
Clarification: This works, i'm interested in why and how to modify the radius.
This should do the trick :)
from math import *
posx, posy = 0,0
sides = 32
radius = 1
glBegin(GL_POLYGON)
for i in range(100):
cosine= radius * cos(i*2*pi/sides) + posx
sine = radius * sin(i*2*pi/sides) + posy
glVertex2f(cosine,sine)
But I would pick another names for variables. cosine and sine is not exactly what these variables are.
And as far as I see, you son't need a loop from 1 to 100 (or from 0 to 99, I'm not too good at Python), you just need a loop from 1 to sides.
Explanation:
When you calculate
x = cos (angle)
y = sin(angle)
you get a point on a circle with radius = 1, and centre in the point (0; 0) (because sin^2(angle) + cos^2(angle) = 1).
If you want to change a radius to R, you simply multiply cos and sin by R.
x = R * cos (angle)
y = R * sin(angle)
If you want to transfer the circle to another location (for example, you want the circle to have it's centre at (X_centre, Y_centre), you add X_centre and Y_xentre to x and y accordingly:
x = R * cos (angle) + X_centre
y = R * sin(angle) + Y_centre
When you need to loop through N points (in your case N = sides) on your circle, you should change the angle on each iteration. All those angles should be equal and their sum should be 2 * pi. So each angle should be equal to 2 * pi/ N. And to get i-th angle you multiply this value by i: i * 2 * pi / N.
math : P=pr^2=p*r*r= p*r*2 programming i*2*pi/sides
together : i = p i*2, *2=r^2 this should help you
Are there any tutorials out there that explain how I can draw a sphere in OpenGL without having to use gluSphere()?
Many of the 3D tutorials for OpenGL are just on cubes. I have searched but most of the solutions to drawing a sphere are to use gluSphere(). There is also a site that has the code to drawing a sphere at this site but it doesn't explain the math behind drawing the sphere. I have also other versions of how to draw the sphere in polygon instead of quads in that link. But again, I don't understand how the spheres are drawn with the code. I want to be able to visualize so that I could modify the sphere if I need to.
One way you can do it is to start with a platonic solid with triangular sides - an octahedron, for example. Then, take each triangle and recursively break it up into smaller triangles, like so:
Once you have a sufficient amount of points, you normalize their vectors so that they are all a constant distance from the center of the solid. This causes the sides to bulge out into a shape that resembles a sphere, with increasing smoothness as you increase the number of points.
Normalization here means moving a point so that its angle in relation to another point is the same, but the distance between them is different.
Here's a two dimensional example.
A and B are 6 units apart. But suppose we want to find a point on line AB that's 12 units away from A.
We can say that C is the normalized form of B with respect to A, with distance 12. We can obtain C with code like this:
#returns a point collinear to A and B, a given distance away from A.
function normalize(a, b, length):
#get the distance between a and b along the x and y axes
dx = b.x - a.x
dy = b.y - a.y
#right now, sqrt(dx^2 + dy^2) = distance(a,b).
#we want to modify them so that sqrt(dx^2 + dy^2) = the given length.
dx = dx * length / distance(a,b)
dy = dy * length / distance(a,b)
point c = new point
c.x = a.x + dx
c.y = a.y + dy
return c
If we do this normalization process on a lot of points, all with respect to the same point A and with the same distance R, then the normalized points will all lie on the arc of a circle with center A and radius R.
Here, the black points begin on a line and "bulge out" into an arc.
This process can be extended into three dimensions, in which case you get a sphere rather than a circle. Just add a dz component to the normalize function.
If you look at the sphere at Epcot, you can sort of see this technique at work. it's a dodecahedron with bulged-out faces to make it look rounder.
I'll further explain a popular way of generating a sphere using latitude and longitude (another
way, icospheres, was already explained in the most popular answer at the time of this writing.)
A sphere can be expressed by the following parametric equation:
F(u, v) = [ cos(u)*sin(v)*r, cos(v)*r, sin(u)*sin(v)*r ]
Where:
r is the radius;
u is the longitude, ranging from 0 to 2π; and
v is the latitude, ranging from 0 to π.
Generating the sphere then involves evaluating the parametric function at fixed intervals.
For example, to generate 16 lines of longitude, there will be 17 grid lines along the u axis, with a step of
π/8 (2π/16) (the 17th line wraps around).
The following pseudocode generates a triangle mesh by evaluating a parametric function
at regular intervals (this works for any parametric surface function, not just spheres).
In the pseudocode below, UResolution is the number of grid points along the U axis
(here, lines of longitude), and VResolution is the number of grid points along the V axis
(here, lines of latitude)
var startU=0
var startV=0
var endU=PI*2
var endV=PI
var stepU=(endU-startU)/UResolution // step size between U-points on the grid
var stepV=(endV-startV)/VResolution // step size between V-points on the grid
for(var i=0;i<UResolution;i++){ // U-points
for(var j=0;j<VResolution;j++){ // V-points
var u=i*stepU+startU
var v=j*stepV+startV
var un=(i+1==UResolution) ? endU : (i+1)*stepU+startU
var vn=(j+1==VResolution) ? endV : (j+1)*stepV+startV
// Find the four points of the grid
// square by evaluating the parametric
// surface function
var p0=F(u, v)
var p1=F(u, vn)
var p2=F(un, v)
var p3=F(un, vn)
// NOTE: For spheres, the normal is just the normalized
// version of each vertex point; this generally won't be the case for
// other parametric surfaces.
// Output the first triangle of this grid square
triangle(p0, p2, p1)
// Output the other triangle of this grid square
triangle(p3, p1, p2)
}
}
The code in the sample is quickly explained. You should look into the function void drawSphere(double r, int lats, int longs):
void drawSphere(double r, int lats, int longs) {
int i, j;
for(i = 0; i <= lats; i++) {
double lat0 = M_PI * (-0.5 + (double) (i - 1) / lats);
double z0 = sin(lat0);
double zr0 = cos(lat0);
double lat1 = M_PI * (-0.5 + (double) i / lats);
double z1 = sin(lat1);
double zr1 = cos(lat1);
glBegin(GL_QUAD_STRIP);
for(j = 0; j <= longs; j++) {
double lng = 2 * M_PI * (double) (j - 1) / longs;
double x = cos(lng);
double y = sin(lng);
glNormal3f(x * zr0, y * zr0, z0);
glVertex3f(r * x * zr0, r * y * zr0, r * z0);
glNormal3f(x * zr1, y * zr1, z1);
glVertex3f(r * x * zr1, r * y * zr1, r * z1);
}
glEnd();
}
}
The parameters lat defines how many horizontal lines you want to have in your sphere and lon how many vertical lines. r is the radius of your sphere.
Now there is a double iteration over lat/lon and the vertex coordinates are calculated, using simple trigonometry.
The calculated vertices are now sent to your GPU using glVertex...() as a GL_QUAD_STRIP, which means you are sending each two vertices that form a quad with the previously two sent.
All you have to understand now is how the trigonometry functions work, but I guess you can figure it out easily.
If you wanted to be sly like a fox you could half-inch the code from GLU. Check out the MesaGL source code (http://cgit.freedesktop.org/mesa/mesa/).
See the OpenGL red book: http://www.glprogramming.com/red/chapter02.html#name8
It solves the problem by polygon subdivision.
My example how to use 'triangle strip' to draw a "polar" sphere, it consists in drawing points in pairs:
const float PI = 3.141592f;
GLfloat x, y, z, alpha, beta; // Storage for coordinates and angles
GLfloat radius = 60.0f;
int gradation = 20;
for (alpha = 0.0; alpha < GL_PI; alpha += PI/gradation)
{
glBegin(GL_TRIANGLE_STRIP);
for (beta = 0.0; beta < 2.01*GL_PI; beta += PI/gradation)
{
x = radius*cos(beta)*sin(alpha);
y = radius*sin(beta)*sin(alpha);
z = radius*cos(alpha);
glVertex3f(x, y, z);
x = radius*cos(beta)*sin(alpha + PI/gradation);
y = radius*sin(beta)*sin(alpha + PI/gradation);
z = radius*cos(alpha + PI/gradation);
glVertex3f(x, y, z);
}
glEnd();
}
First point entered (glVertex3f) is as follows the parametric equation and the second one is shifted by a single step of alpha angle (from next parallel).
Although the accepted answer solves the question, there's a little misconception at the end. Dodecahedrons are (or could be) regular polyhedron where all faces have the same area. That seems to be the case of the Epcot (which, by the way, is not a dodecahedron at all). Since the solution proposed by #Kevin does not provide this characteristic I thought I could add an approach that does.
A good way to generate an N-faced polyhedron where all vertices lay in the same sphere and all its faces have similar area/surface is starting with an icosahedron and the iteratively sub-dividing and normalizing its triangular faces (as suggested in the accepted answer). Dodecahedrons, for instance, are actually truncated icosahedrons.
Regular icosahedrons have 20 faces (12 vertices) and can easily be constructed from 3 golden rectangles; it's just a matter of having this as a starting point instead of an octahedron. You may find an example here.
I know this is a bit off-topic but I believe it may help if someone gets here looking for this specific case.
Python adaptation of #Constantinius answer:
lats = 10
longs = 10
r = 10
for i in range(lats):
lat0 = pi * (-0.5 + i / lats)
z0 = sin(lat0)
zr0 = cos(lat0)
lat1 = pi * (-0.5 + (i+1) / lats)
z1 = sin(lat1)
zr1 = cos(lat1)
glBegin(GL_QUAD_STRIP)
for j in range(longs+1):
lng = 2 * pi * (j+1) / longs
x = cos(lng)
y = sin(lng)
glNormal(x * zr0, y * zr0, z0)
glVertex(r * x * zr0, r * y * zr0, r * z0)
glNormal(x * zr1, y * zr1, z1)
glVertex(r * x * zr1, r * y * zr1, r * z1)
glEnd()
void draw_sphere(float r)
{
float pi = 3.141592;
float di = 0.02;
float dj = 0.04;
float db = di * 2 * pi;
float da = dj * pi;
for (float i = 0; i < 1.0; i += di) //horizonal
for (float j = 0; j < 1.0; j += dj) //vertical
{
float b = i * 2 * pi; //0 to 2pi
float a = (j - 0.5) * pi; //-pi/2 to pi/2
//normal
glNormal3f(
cos(a + da / 2) * cos(b + db / 2),
cos(a + da / 2) * sin(b + db / 2),
sin(a + da / 2));
glBegin(GL_QUADS);
//P1
glTexCoord2f(i, j);
glVertex3f(
r * cos(a) * cos(b),
r * cos(a) * sin(b),
r * sin(a));
//P2
glTexCoord2f(i + di, j);//P2
glVertex3f(
r * cos(a) * cos(b + db),
r * cos(a) * sin(b + db),
r * sin(a));
//P3
glTexCoord2f(i + di, j + dj);
glVertex3f(
r * cos(a + da) * cos(b + db),
r * cos(a + da) * sin(b + db),
r * sin(a + da));
//P4
glTexCoord2f(i, j + dj);
glVertex3f(
r * cos(a + da) * cos(b),
r * cos(a + da) * sin(b),
r * sin(a + da));
glEnd();
}
}
One way is to make a quad that faces the camera and write a vertex and fragment shader that renders something that looks like a sphere. You could use equations for a circle/sphere that you can find on the internet.
One nice thing is that the silhouette of a sphere looks the same from any angle. However, if the sphere is not in the center of a perspective view, then it would appear perhaps more like an ellipse. You could work out the equations for this and put them in the fragment shading. Then the light shading needs to changed as the player moves, if you do indeed have a player moving in 3D space around the sphere.
Can anyone comment on if they have tried this or if it would be too expensive to be practical?