Rotating a point about another point (2D) - c++

I'm trying to make a card game where the cards fan out. Right now to display it Im using the Allegro API which has a function:
al_draw_rotated_bitmap(OBJECT_TO_ROTATE,CENTER_X,CENTER_Y,X
,Y,DEGREES_TO_ROTATE_IN_RADIANS);
so with this I can make my fan effect easily. The problem is then knowing which card is under the mouse. To do this I thought of doing a polygon collision test. I'm just not sure how to rotate the 4 points on the card to make up the polygon. I basically need to do the same operation as Allegro.
for example, the 4 points of the card are:
card.x
card.y
card.x + card.width
card.y + card.height
I would need a function like:
POINT rotate_point(float cx,float cy,float angle,POINT p)
{
}
Thanks

First subtract the pivot point (cx,cy), then rotate it (counter clock-wise), then add the point again.
Untested:
POINT rotate_point(float cx,float cy,float angle,POINT p)
{
float s = sin(angle);
float c = cos(angle);
// translate point back to origin:
p.x -= cx;
p.y -= cy;
// rotate point
float xnew = p.x * c - p.y * s;
float ynew = p.x * s + p.y * c;
// translate point back:
p.x = xnew + cx;
p.y = ynew + cy;
return p;
}

If you rotate point (px, py) around point (ox, oy) by angle theta you'll get:
p'x = cos(theta) * (px-ox) - sin(theta) * (py-oy) + ox
p'y = sin(theta) * (px-ox) + cos(theta) * (py-oy) + oy
this is an easy way to rotate a point in 2D.

The coordinate system on the screen is left-handed, i.e. the x coordinate increases from left to right and the y coordinate increases from top to bottom. The origin, O(0, 0) is at the upper left corner of the screen.
A clockwise rotation around the origin of a point with coordinates (x, y) is given by the following equations:
where (x', y') are the coordinates of the point after rotation and angle theta, the angle of rotation (needs to be in radians, i.e. multiplied by: PI / 180).
To perform rotation around a point different from the origin O(0,0), let's say point A(a, b) (pivot point). Firstly we translate the point to be rotated, i.e. (x, y) back to the origin, by subtracting the coordinates of the pivot point, (x - a, y - b).
Then we perform the rotation and get the new coordinates (x', y') and finally we translate the point back, by adding the coordinates of the pivot point to the new coordinates (x' + a, y' + b).
Following the above description:
a 2D clockwise theta degrees rotation of point (x, y) around point (a, b) is:
Using your function prototype: (x, y) -> (p.x, p.y); (a, b) -> (cx, cy); theta -> angle:
POINT rotate_point(float cx, float cy, float angle, POINT p){
return POINT(cos(angle) * (p.x - cx) - sin(angle) * (p.y - cy) + cx,
sin(angle) * (p.x - cx) + cos(angle) * (p.y - cy) + cy);
}

float s = sin(angle); // angle is in radians
float c = cos(angle); // angle is in radians
For clockwise rotation :
float xnew = p.x * c + p.y * s;
float ynew = -p.x * s + p.y * c;
For counter clockwise rotation :
float xnew = p.x * c - p.y * s;
float ynew = p.x * s + p.y * c;

This is the answer by Nils Pipenbrinck, but implemented in c# fiddle.
https://dotnetfiddle.net/btmjlG
using System;
public class Program
{
public static void Main()
{
var angle = 180 * Math.PI/180;
Console.WriteLine(rotate_point(0,0,angle,new Point{X=10, Y=10}).Print());
}
static Point rotate_point(double cx, double cy, double angle, Point p)
{
double s = Math.Sin(angle);
double c = Math.Cos(angle);
// translate point back to origin:
p.X -= cx;
p.Y -= cy;
// rotate point
double Xnew = p.X * c - p.Y * s;
double Ynew = p.X * s + p.Y * c;
// translate point back:
p.X = Xnew + cx;
p.Y = Ynew + cy;
return p;
}
class Point
{
public double X;
public double Y;
public string Print(){
return $"{X},{Y}";
}
}
}
Ps: Apparently I can’t comment, so I’m obligated to post it as an answer ...

I struggled while working MS OCR Read API which returns back angle of rotation in range (-180, 180]. So I have to do an extra step of converting negative angles to positive. I hope someone struggling with point rotation with negative or positive angles can use the following.
def rotate(origin, point, angle):
"""
Rotate a point counter-clockwise by a given angle around a given origin.
"""
# Convert negative angles to positive
angle = normalise_angle(angle)
# Convert to radians
angle = math.radians(angle)
# Convert to radians
ox, oy = origin
px, py = point
# Move point 'p' to origin (0,0)
_px = px - ox
_py = py - oy
# Rotate the point 'p'
qx = (math.cos(angle) * _px) - (math.sin(angle) * _py)
qy = (math.sin(angle) * _px) + (math.cos(angle) * _py)
# Move point 'p' back to origin (ox, oy)
qx = ox + qx
qy = oy + qy
return [qx, qy]
def normalise_angle(angle):
""" If angle is negative then convert it to positive. """
if (angle != 0) & (abs(angle) == (angle * -1)):
angle = 360 + angle
return angle

Related

Quaternion rotation works fine with y/z rotation but gets messed up when I add x rotation

So I've been learning about quaternions recently and decided to make my own implementation. I tried to make it simple but I still can't pinpoint my error. x/y/z axis rotation works fine on it's own and y/z rotation work as well, but the second I add x axis to any of the others I get a strange stretching output. I'll attach the important code for the rotations below:(Be warned I'm quite new to cpp).
Here is how I describe a quaternion (as I understand since they are unit quaternions imaginary numbers aren't required):
struct Quaternion {
float w, x, y, z;
};
The multiplication rules of quaternions:
Quaternion operator* (Quaternion n, Quaternion p) {
Quaternion o;
// implements quaternion multiplication rules:
o.w = n.w * p.w - n.x * p.x - n.y * p.y - n.z * p.z;
o.x = n.w * p.x + n.x * p.w + n.y * p.z - n.z * p.y;
o.y = n.w * p.y - n.x * p.z + n.y * p.w + n.z * p.x;
o.z = n.w * p.z + n.x * p.y - n.y * p.x + n.z * p.w;
return o;
}
Generating the rotation quaternion to multiply the total rotation by:
Quaternion rotate(float w, float x, float y, float z) {
Quaternion n;
n.w = cosf(w/2);
n.x = x * sinf(w/2);
n.y = y * sinf(w/2);
n.z = z * sinf(w/2);
return n;
}
And finally, the matrix calculations which turn the quaternion into an x/y/z position:
inline vector<float> quaternion_matrix(Quaternion total, vector<float> vec) {
float x = vec[0], y = vec[1], z = vec[2];
// implementation of 3x3 quaternion rotation matrix:
vec[0] = (1 - 2 * pow(total.y, 2) - 2 * pow(total.z, 2))*x + (2 * total.x * total.y - 2 * total.w * total.z)*y + (2 * total.x * total.z + 2 * total.w * total.y)*z;
vec[1] = (2 * total.x * total.y + 2 * total.w * total.z)*x + (1 - 2 * pow(total.x, 2) - 2 * pow(total.z, 2))*y + (2 * total.y * total.z + 2 * total.w * total.x)*z;
vec[2] = (2 * total.x * total.z - 2 * total.w * total.y)*x + (2 * total.y * total.z - 2 * total.w * total.x)*y + (1 - 2 * pow(total.x, 2) - 2 * pow(total.y, 2))*z;
return vec;
}
That's pretty much it (I also have a normalize function to deal with floating point errors), I initialize all objects quaternion to: w = 1, x = 0, y = 0, z = 0. I rotate a quaternion using an expression like this:
obj.rotation = rotate(angle, x-axis, y-axis, z-axis) * obj.rotation
where obj.rotation is the objects total quaternion rotation value.
I appreciate any help I can get on this issue, if anyone knows what's wrong or has also experienced this issue before. Thanks
EDIT: multiplying total by these quaternions output the expected rotation:
rotate(angle,1,0,0)
rotate(angle,0,1,0)
rotate(angle,0,0,1)
rotate(angle,0,1,1)
However, any rotations such as these make the model stretch oddly:
rotate(angle,1,1,0)
rotate(angle,1,0,1)
EDIT2: here is the normalize function I use to normalize the quaternions:
Quaternion normalize(Quaternion n, double tolerance) {
// adds all squares of quaternion values, if normalized, total will be 1:
double total = pow(n.w, 2) + pow(n.x, 2) + pow(n.y, 2) + pow(n.z, 2);
if (total > 1 + tolerance || total < 1 - tolerance) {
// normalizes value of quaternion if it exceeds a certain tolerance value:
n.w /= (float) sqrt(total);
n.x /= (float) sqrt(total);
n.y /= (float) sqrt(total);
n.z /= (float) sqrt(total);
}
return n;
}
To implement two rotations in sequence you need the quaternion product of the two elementary rotations. Each elementary rotation is specified by an axis and an angle. But in your code you did not make sure you have a unit vector (direction vector) for the axis.
Do the following modification
Quaternion rotate(float w, float x, float y, float z) {
Quaternion n;
float f = 1/sqrtf(x*x+y*y+z*z)
n.w = cosf(w/2);
n.x = f * x * sinf(w/2);
n.y = f * y * sinf(w/2);
n.z = f * z * sinf(w/2);
return n;
}
and then use it as follows
Quaternion n = rotate(angle1,1,0,0) * rotate(angle2,0,1,0)
for the combined rotation of angle1 about the x-axis, and angle2 about the y-axis.
As pointed out in comments, you are not initializing your quaternions correctly.
The following quaternions are not rotations:
rotate(angle,0,1,1)
rotate(angle,1,1,0)
rotate(angle,1,0,1)
The reason is the axis is not normalized e.g., the vector (0,1,1) is not normalized. Also make sure your angles are in radians.

How do you determine if a point is in front or behind a line segment using the Half Space test?

How do you determine if a point is in front of a line with the half space test? I have tried the following. It works most of the time, but fails others. Are there circumstances where it will not work? For example, will it only work if all points are within certain quadrants? If not, what am I incorrectly doing?
I have tried:
bool PointInFrontOfLine(Point testPoint, Point v1, Point v2)
{
// Compute line normal
double dx = v2.x - v1.x;
double dy = v2.y - v1.y;
double nx = -dy;
double ny = dx;
double length = sqrt(dx * dx + dy * dy);
nx /= length;
ny /= length;
glm::vec3 normal(nx, 0, ny);
glm::vec3 vec(testPoint.x - v1.x, 0, testPoint.y - v1.y);
double distance = glm::dot(vecTemp, normal);
if (distance > 0)
return true;
else
return false;
}
What you actually do is to calculate the (left turned) normal vector to the line which is defined by the points v1 and v2:
double dx = v2.x - v1.x;
double dy = v2.y - v1.y;
double nx = -dy;
double ny = dx;
double length = sqrt(dx * dx + dy * dy);
nx /= length;
ny /= length;
glm::vec3 normal(nx, 0, ny);
This can be simplified:
glm::vec3 normal(v1.y - v2.y, 0, v2.x - v1.x);
normal = glm::normalize(normal);
Note, for the algorithm you can even skip the normalization, then you won't get the correct normal distance, but the sign of distance is still correct. This is sufficient in your case because you only check distance > 0:
glm::vec3 normal(v1.y - v2.y, 0, v2.x - v1.x);
Then you check if the angle between the normal vector and the vector from v1 to testPoint is greater -90 degrees and less than +90 degrees:
glm::vec3 vec(testPoint.x - v1.x, 0, testPoint.y - v1.y);
double distance = glm::dot(vecTemp, normal);
This works, because in general The dot product of 2 vectors is equal the cosine of the angle between the 2 vectors multiplied by the magnitude (lenght) of both vectors. If the cosine of an angle is >= 0, the the angle is in range [-90°, 90°].
dot( A, B ) == length( A ) * length( B ) * cos( angle_A_B )
But the algorithm only works, if v2.x < v1.x (In the following pictures the x-axis points from left to right and the y-axis points from bottom to top):
If the 2 points are swapped (v2.x > v1.x), then you'll get the opposite result:
Finally the code can be expressed somehow like this:
glm::dot(glm::vec2(testPoint.x-v1.x, testPoint.y-v1.y),
glm::vec2(v1.y-v2.y, v2.x-v1.x)) * glm::sign(v1.x-v2.x) > 0
Of coures the result still depends on, what "in front of" means. In my assumptions it means, that the y coordinate of testPoint is less than the y coordinate of the intersection point of the line v1 to v2 with a parallel line to the y-axis through testPoint. This means it depends on your program logic and coordinate system if this algorithm always calculates "in front" or "in back".

How to get vertices for a sphere? [duplicate]

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?

generate spherical arc coordinates

I want to generate a vector of spherical (Earth) coordinates that would draw an arc given center location (in longitude latitude), radius (in meters), azimuth, and angle width (in radians).
My code:
double left = azimuth - width * .5;
double right = azimuth + width * .5;
double angleStep = 0.05;
std::vector<double> arcPointsX, arcPointsY;
for (double f = left; f <= right; f += angleStep) {
arcPointsX.push_back(x + radius * (double)cos(f));
arcPointsY.push_back(y + radius * (double)sin(f));
}
This produces arcs however, these arcs are not facing the correct direction when I draw them though.
Thanks for help!
It turned out the problem was I had sin/cos the other way around. Using this gives me correct arcs:
arcPointsX.push_back(x + radius * (double)sin(f));
arcPointsY.push_back(y + radius * (double)cos(f));

Drawing Sphere in OpenGL without using gluSphere()?

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?