Two points rotating around same center but distance grows - c++

I want to achieve that two points are rotating around each other. I therefore use a rotation matrix. However I now get the problem that the distance between the points is growing (see atached video 1). The distance however should stay constant over my whole simulation.
Here is my code I use for calculating the speed:
Where p1 and p2 are the two points.
double xPos = p0.x+p1.x;
double yPos = p0.y+p1.y;
//The center between p1 and p2
xPos /=2;
yPos /=2;
//the rotating angle
double omega = 0.1;
//calculate the new positions
double x0new = xPos + (p0.x-xPos)*std::cos(omega) - (p0.y-yPos)*std::sin(omega);
double y0new = yPos + (p0.x-xPos)*std::sin(omega) + (p0.y-yPos)*std::cos(omega);
double x1new = xPos + (p1.x-xPos)*std::cos(omega) - (p1.y-yPos)*std::sin(omega);
double y1new = yPos + (p1.x-xPos)*std::sin(omega) + (p1.y-yPos)*std::cos(omega);
//the speed is exatly the difference as I integrate one timestep
p0.setSpeed(p0.x-x0new, p0.y-y0new);
p1.setSpeed(p1.x-x1new, p1.y-y1new);
I then integrate the speed exactly one timestep. What is wrong in my calculation?
Update
It seems that my integration is wrong. If I set the positions direct it works perfect. However I do not now what is wrong with this integration:
setSpeed(ux,uy){
ux_=ux;
uy_=uy;
}
// integrate one timestep t = 1
move(){
x = x + ux_;
y = y + uy_;
}
Video of my behaviour

There's nothing clearly wrong in this code, but the "speed" integration that isn't shown, suggests that you might be integrating linearly between old and new position, which would make the orbits expand when speed > nominal speed and to contract when speed < nominal_speed.
As I suspected. The integration is actually extrapolation at the line segment between point p0 and p1 which are supposed to be at a fixed distance from origin (a physical simulation would probably make the trajectory elliptical...)
Thus if the extrapolation factor would be 0, the new position would be on the calculated perimeter. If it was < 0 (and > -1), you'd be interpolating inside the expected trajectory.
O This beautiful ascii art is trying to illustrate the integration
/ x is the original position, o is the new one and O is the
/ ___----- "integrated" value and the arc is a perfect circle :)
o-- Only at the calculated position o, there is no expansion.
--/
/ /
/ /
| /
x

At the first glance, the main reason is that you update p0 and p1 coordinates in the each iteration. That would accumulate inaccuracies, which are possibly coming from setSpeed.
Instead, you should use the constant initial coordinates p0 and p1, but increase omega angle.

Related

Algorithm for determine the Arc Mid Point

I am currently looking to implement an algorithm that will be able to compute the arc midpoint. From here on out, I will be referring to the diagram below. What is known are the start and end nodes (A and B respectively), the center (point C) and point P which is the intersection point of the line AB and CM (I am able to find this point without knowing point M because line AB is perpendicular to line CM and thus, the slope is -1/m). I also know the arc angle and the radius of the arc. I am looking to find point M.
I have been looking at different sources. Some suggest converting coordinates to polar, computing the mid point from the polar coordinates then reverting back to Cartesian. This involves sin and cos (and arctan) which I am a little reluctant to do since trig functions take computing time.
I have been looking to directly computing point M by treating the arc as a circle and having Line CP as a line that intersects the circle at Point M. I would then get two values and the value closest to point P would be the correct intersection point. However, this method, the algebra becomes long and complex. Then I would need to create special cases for when P = C and for when the line AB is horizontal and vertical. This method is ok but I am wondering if there are any better methods out there that can compute this point that are simpler?
Also, as a side note, I will be creating this algorithm in C++.
A circumference in polar form is expressed by
x = Cx + R cos(alpha)
y = Cy + R sin(alpha)
Where alpha is the angle from center C to point x,y. The goal now is how to get alpha without trigonometry.
The arc-midpoint M, the point S in the middle of the segment AB, and your already-calculated point P, all of them have the same alpha, they are on the same line from C.
Let's get vector vx,vy as C to S. Also calculate its length:
vx = Sx - Cx = (Ax + Bx)/2 - Cx
vy = Sy - Cy = (Ay + By)/2 - Cy
leV = sqrt(vx * vx + vy * vy)
I prefer S to P because we can avoid some issues like infinite CP slope or sign to apply to slope (towards M or its inverse).
By defintions of sin and cos we know that:
sin(alpha) = vy / leV
cos(alpha) = vx / leV
and finally we get
Mx = Cx + R * vx / leV
My = Cy + R * vy / leV
Note: To calculate Ryou need another sqrt function, which is not quick, but it's faster than sin or cos.
For better accuracy use the average of Ra= dist(AC) and Rb= dist(BC)
I would then get two values
This is algebraically unavoidable.
and the value closest to point P would be the correct intersection point.
Only if the arc covers less than 180°.
Then I would need to create special cases for when P = C
This is indeed the most tricky case. If A, B, C lie on a line, you don't know which arc is the arc, and won't be able to answer the question. Unless you have some additional information to start with, e.g. know that the arc goes from A to B in a counter-clockwise direction. In this case, you know the orientation of the triangle ABM and can use that to decide which solition to pick, instead of using the distance.
and for when the line AB is horizontal and vertical
Express a line as ax + by + c = 0 and you can treat all slopes the same. THese are homogeneous coordinates of the line, you can compute them e.g. using the cross product (a, b, c) = (Ax, Ay, 1) × (Bx, By, 1). But more detailed questions on how best to compute these lines or intersect it with the circle should probably go to the Math Stack Exchange.
if there are any better methods out there that can compute this point that are simpler?
Projective geometry and homogeneous coordinates can avoid a lot of nasty corner cases, like circles of infinite radius (also known as lines) or the intersection of parallel lines. But the problem of deciding between two solutions remains, so it probably doesn't make things as simple as you'd like them to be.

C++ Move 2D Point Along Angle

So I am writing a game in C++, currently I am working on a 'Compass', but I am having some problems with the vector math..
Here is a little image I created to possibly help explain my question better
Ok, so as you can see the 2D position of A begins at (4, 4), but then I want to move A along the 45 degree angle until the 2D position reaches (16, 16), so basically there is a 12 distance between where A starts and where it ends. And my qustion is how would I calculate this?
the simplest way in 2D is to take angle 'ang', and distance 'd', and your starting point 'x' and 'y':
x1 = x + cos(ang) * distance;
y1 = y + sin(ang) * distance;
In 2D the rotation for any object can be just stored as a single value, ang.
using cos for x and sin for y is the "standard" way that almost everyone does it. cos(ang) and sin(ang) trace a circle out as ang increases. ang = 0 points right along the x-axis here, and as angle increases it spins counter-clockwise (i.e at 90 degrees it's pointing straight up). If you swap the cos and sin terms for x and y, you get ang = 0 pointing up along the y axis and clockwise rotation with increasing ang (since it's a mirror image), which could in fact be more convenient for making game, since y-axis is often the "forward" direction and you might like that increasing ang spins to the right.
x1 = x + sin(ang) * distance;
y1 = y + cos(ang) * distance;
Later you can get into vectors and matricies that do the same thing but in a more flexible manner, but cos/sin are fine to get started with in a 2D game. In a 3D game, using cos and sin for rotations starts to break down in certain circumstances, and you start really benefiting from learning the matrix-based approaches.
The distance between (4,4) and (16,16) isn't actually 12. Using pythagorean theorem, the distance is actually sqrt(12^2 + 12^2) which is 16.97. To get points along the line you want to use sine and cosine. E.g. If you want to calculate the point halfway along the line the x coordinate would be cos(45)(16.97/2) and the y would be sin(45)(16.97/2). This will work with other angles besides 45 degrees.

Using Standard Cartesian Circle formula to draw circle in graphics mode (C++)

I wanted to draw a circle using graphics.h in C++, but not directly using the circle() function. The circle I want to draw uses smaller circles as it's points i.e. The smaller circles would constitute the circumference of the larger circle. So I thought, if I did something like this, it would work:
{
int radius = 4;
// Points at which smaller circles would be drawn
int x, y;
int maxx = getmaxx();
int maxy = getmaxy();
// Co-ordinates of center of the larger circle (centre of the screen)
int h = maxx/2;
int k = maxy/2;
//Cartesian cirle formula >> (X-h)^2 + (Y-k)^2 = radius^2
//Effectively, this nested loop goes through every single coordinate on the screen
int gmode = DETECT;
int gdriver;
initgraph(&gmode, &gdriver, "");
for(x = 0; x<maxx; x++)
{
for(y = 0; y<maxy; y++)
{
if((((x-h)*(x-h)) + ((y-k)*(y-k))) == (radius*radius))
{
circle(x, y, 5) //Draw smaller circle with radius 5
} //at points which satisfy circle equation only!
}
}
getch();
}
This is when I'm using graphics.h on Turbo C++ as this is the compiler we're learning with at school.
I know it's ancient.
So, theoretically, since the nested for loops check all the points on the screen, and draw a small circle at every point that satisfies the circle equation only, I thought I would get a large circle of radius as entered, whose circumference constitutes of the smaller circles I make in the for loop.
However, when I try the program, I get four hyperbolas (all pointing towards the center of the screen) and when I increase the radius, the pointiness (for lack of a better word) of the hyperbolas increase, until finally, when the radius is 256 or more, the two hyperbolas on the top and bottom intersect to make a large cross on my screen like : "That's it, user, I give up!"
I came to the value 256 as I noticed that of the radius was a multiple of 4 the figures looked ... better?
I looked around for a solution for quite some time, but couldn't get any answers, so here I am.
Any suggestions???
EDIT >> Here's a rough diagram of the output I got...
There are two issues in your code:
First: You should really call initgraph before you call getmaxx and getmaxy, otherwise they will not necessarily return the correct dimensions of the graphics mode. This may or may not be a contributing factor depending on your setup.
Second, and most importantly: In Turbo C++, int is 16-bit. For example, here is circle with radius 100 (after the previous initgraph order issue was fixed):
Note the stray circles in the four corners. If we do a little debugging and add some print-outs (a useful strategy that you should file away for future reference):
if((((x-h)*(x-h)) + ((y-k)*(y-k))) == (radius*radius))
{
printf(": (%d-%d)^2 + (%d-%d)^2 = %d^2\n", x, h, y, k, radius);
circle(x, y, 5); //Draw smaller circle with radius
} //at points which satisfy circle equation only!
You can see what's happening (first line is maxx and maxy, not shown in above snippet):
In particular that circle at (63, 139) is one of the corners. If you do the math, you see that:
(63 - 319)2 + (139 - 239)2 = 75536
And since your ints are 16-bit, 75536 modulo 65536 = 10000 = the value that ends up being calculated = 1002 = a circle where it shouldn't be.
An easy solution to this is to just change the relevant variables to long:
maxx, maxy
x, y
h, k
So:
long x, y;
...
initgraph(...);
...
long maxx = getmaxx();
long maxy = getmaxy();
...
long h = maxx / 2;
long k = maxy / 2;
And then you'll end up with correct output:
Note of course that like other answers point out, since you are using ints, you'll miss a lot of points. This may or may not be OK, but some values will produce noticeably poorer results (e.g. radius 256 only seems to have 4 integer solutions). You could introduce a tolerance if you want. You could also use a more direct approach but that might defeat the purpose of your exercise with the Cartesian circle formula. If you're into this sort of thing, here is a 24-page document containing a bunch of discussion, proofs, and properties about integers that are the sum of two squares.
I don't know enough about Turbo C++ to know if you can make it use 32-bit ints, I'll leave that as an exercise to you.
First of all, maxx and maxy are integers, which you initialize using some functions representing the borders of the screen and then later you use them as functions. Just remove the paranthesis:
// Co-ordinates of center of the larger circle (centre of the screen)
int h = maxx/2;
int k = maxy/2;
Then, you are checking for exact equality to check whether a point is on a circle. Since the screen is a grid of pixels, many of your points will be missed. You need to add a tolerance, a maximum distance between the point you check and the actual circle. So change this line:
if(((x-h)*(x-h)) + ((y-k)*(y-k)) == radius*radius)
to this:
if(abs(((x-h)*(x-h)) + ((y-k)*(y-k)) - radius*radius) < 2)
Introduction of some level of tolerance will solve the problem.
But it is not wise to check all the points in graphical window. Would you change an approach? You can draw needed small circles without checks at all:
To fill all big circle circumference (with RBig radius), you need NCircles small circles with RSmall radius
NCircles = round to integer (Pi / ArcSin(RSmall / RBig));
Center of i-th small circle is at position
cx = mx + Round(RBig * Cos(i * 2 * Pi / N));
cy = my + Round(RBig * Sin(i * 2 * Pi / N));
where mx, my - center of the big circle

C++ Detect collision between two points and bouncing off the normal if there is a collision

I have a ground set up of various points, some of which are flat and others are at an angle, I'm trying to check if there is a collision between the angled points (non-axis aligned).
I have a vector array consisting of two floats at each point - This is each of the points of the ground.
Here's an image representation of what the ground looks like.
http://i.imgur.com/cgEMqUv.png?1?4597
At the moment I want to check collisions between points 1 and 2 and then go onto the others.
I shall use points 1 and 2 as an example.
g1x = 150; g2x = 980;
g2x = 500; g2y = 780;
The dxdy of this is dx = 350 and dy = -200
The normal x of this is dy and the normal y is -dx
nx = -200;
ny = -350;
normalized it is the length between points 1 and 2 which is 403.11
nx/normalized = -0.496
ny/normalized = -0.868
//get position of object - Don't know if its supposed to be velocity or not
float vix = object->getPosition().x;
float viy = object->getPosition().y;
//calculate dot product - unsure if vix/viy are supposed to be minused
float dot = ((-vix * nrmx) + (-viy * nrmy)) * nrmx; //= -131.692
Is this information correct to calculate the normal and dot product between the two points.
How can I check if there is a collision with this line and then reflect according to the normal.
Thanks :) any and all changes are welcome.
Say you have a particle at position x travelling at velocity v and a boundary defined by the line between a and b.
We can find how far along the boundary (as a fraction) the particle collides by projecting c-a onto b-a and dividing by the length ||b-a||. That is,
u = ((c-a).((b-a)/||b-a||))/||b-a|| == (c-a).(b-a) / ||b-a||2.
If u > 1 then the particle travels past the boundary on the b side, if u < 0 then the particle travels past the boundary on the a side. The point of collision would be
c = a + u b.
The time to collision could be found by solving
x + t v = a + s (b-a)
for t. The reflection matrix can be found here. But it will need to be rotated by 90 deg (or pi/2) so that you're reflecting orthogonal to the line, not across it.
In terms of multiple boundaries, calculate the time to collision for each of them, sort by that time (discarding negative times) and check for collisions through the list. Once you've found the one that you will collide with then you can move your particle to the point of collision, reflect it's velocity, change the delta t and redo the whole thing again (ignoring the one you just collided with) as you may collide with more than one boundary in a corner case (get it? It's a maths pun).
Linear algebra can be fun, and you can do so much more with it, getting to grips with linear algebra allows you to do some powerful things. Good luck!

Direct3D & iPhone Accelerometer Matrix

I am using a WinSock connection to get the accelerometer info off and iPhone and into a Direct3D application. I have modified Apples GLGravity's sample code to get my helicopter moving in relation to gravity, however I need to "cap" the movement so the helicopter can't fly upside down! I have tried to limit the output of the accelerometer like so
if (y < -0.38f) {
y = -0.38f;
}
Except this doesn't seem to work!? The only thing I can think of is I need to modify the custom matrix, but I can't seem to get my head around what I need to be changing. The matrix is code is below.
_x = acceleration.x;
_y = acceleration.y;
_z = acceleration.z;
float length;
D3DXMATRIX matrix, t;
memset(matrix, '\0', sizeof(matrix));
D3DXMatrixIdentity(&matrix);
// Make sure acceleration value is big enough.
length = sqrtf(_x * _x + _y * _y + _z * _z);
if (length >= 0.1f && kInFlight == TRUE) { // We have a acceleration value good enough to work with.
matrix._44 = 1.0f; //
// First matrix column is a gravity vector.
matrix._11 = _x / length;
matrix._12 = _y / length;
matrix._13 = _z / length;
// Second matrix is arbitrary vector in the plane perpendicular to the gravity vector {Gx, Gy, Gz}.
// defined by the equation Gx * x + Gy * y + Gz * z = 0 in which we set x = 0 and y = 1.
matrix._21 = 0.0f;
matrix._22 = 1.0f;
matrix._23 = -_y / _z;
length = sqrtf(matrix._21 * matrix._21 + matrix._22 * matrix._22 + matrix._23 * matrix._23);
matrix._21 /= length;
matrix._22 /= length;
matrix._23 /= length;
// Set third matrix column as a cross product of the first two.
matrix._31 = matrix._12 * matrix._23 - matrix._13 * matrix._22;
matrix._32 = matrix._21 * matrix._13 - matrix._23 * matrix._11;
matrix._33 = matrix._11 * matrix._22 - matrix._12 * matrix._21;
}
If anyone can help it would be much appreciated!
I think double integration is probably over-complicating things. If I understand the problem correctly, the iPhone is giving you a vector of values from the accelerometers. Assuming the user isn't waving it around, that vector will be of roughly constant length, and pointing directly downwards with gravity.
There is one major problem with this, and that is that you can't tell when the user rotates the phone around the horizontal. Imagine you lie your phone on the table, with the bottom facing you as you're sitting in front of it; the gravity vector would be (0, -1, 0). Now rotate your phone around 90 degrees so the bottom is facing off to your left, but is still flat on the table. The gravity vector is still going to be (0, -1, 0). But you'd really want your helicopter to have turned with the phone. It's a basic limitation of the fact that the iPhone only has a 2D accelerometer, and it's extrapolating a 3D gravity vector from that.
So let's assume that you've told the user they're not allowed to rotate their phone like that, and they have to keep it with the bottom point to you. That's fine, you can still get a lot of control from that.
Next, you need to cap the input such that the helicopter never goes more than 90 degrees over on it's side. Imagine the vector that you're given as being a stick attached to your phone, and dangling with gravity. The vector you have is describing the direction of gravity, relative to the phone's flat surface. If it were (0, -1, 0) the stick is pointing directly downwards (-y). if it were (1, 0, 0), the stick is pointing to the right of the phone (+x), and implies that the phone has been twisted 90 degrees clockwise (looking away from you at the phone).
Assume in this metaphor that the stick has full rotational freedom. It can be pointing in any direction from the phone. So moving the stick around describes the surface of a sphere. But crucially, you only want the stick to be able to move around the lower half of that sphere. If the user twists the phone so that the stick would be in the upper half of the sphere, you want it to cap such that it's pointing somewhere around the equator of the sphere.
You can achieve this quite cleanly by using polar co-ordinates. 3D vectors and polar co-ordinates are interchangeable - you can convert to and from without losing any information.
Convert the vector you have (normalised of course) into a set of 3D polar co-ordinates (you should be able to find this logic on the web quite easily). This will give you an angle around the horizontal plane, and an angle for vertical plane (and a distance from the origin - for a normalised vector, this should be 1.0). If the vertical angle is positive, the vector is in the upper half of the sphere, negative it's in the lower half. Then, cap the vertical angle so that it is always zero or less (and so in the lower half of the sphere). Then you can take the horizontal and capped vertical angle, and convert it back into a vector.
This new vector, if plugged into the matrix code you already have, will give you the correct orientation, limited to the range of motion you need. It will also be stable if the user turns their phone slightly beyond the 90 degree mark - this logic will keep your directional vector as close to the user's current orientation as possible, without going beyond the limit you set.
Try normalizing the acceleration vector first. (edit: after you check the length) (edit edit: I guess I need to learn how to read... how do I delete my answer?)
So if I understand this correctly, the iPhone is feeding you accelerometer data, saying how hard you're moving the iPhone in 3 axes.
I'm not familiar with that apple sample, so I don't know what its doing. However, it sounds like you're mapping acceleration directly to orientation, but I think what you want to do is doubly integrate the acceleration in order to obtain a position and look at changes in position in order to orient the helicopter. Basically, this is more of a physics problem than a Direct3D problem.
It looks like you are using the acceleration vector from the phone to define one axis of a orthogonal frame of reference. And I suppose +Y is points towards the ground so you are concerned about the case when the vector points towards the sky.
Consider the case when the iphone reports {0, -6.0, 0}. You will change this vector to {0, -.38, 0}. But they both normalize to {0, -1.0, 0}. So, the effect of clamping y at -.38 is influenced by magnitude of the other two components of the vector.
What you really want is to limit the angle of the vector to the XZ plane when Y is negative.
Say you want to limit it to be no more than 30 degrees to the XZ plane when Y is negative. First normalize the vector then:
const float limitAngle = 30.f * PI/180.f; // angle in radians
const float sinLimitAngle = sinf(limitAngle);
const float XZLimitLength = sqrtf(1-sinLimitAngle*sinLimitAngle);
if (_y < -sinLimitAngle)
{
_y = -sinLimitAngle;
float XZlengthScale = XZLimitLength / sqrtf(_x*_x + _z*_z);
_x *= XZlengthScale;
_z *= XZlengthScale;
}