Making a Circle in using Math nodes - math

I tried to make a circle using Math Nodes in Blender Shader Editor on a default Plane. A default Plane has dimensions of [2 m * 2 m]. I used the standard equation
(x-g)^2 + (y-h)^2 - r^2 = 0
But the circle formed exceeds the Plane when I use the value (1,1) for (g,h). But when I use (0.5,0.5) for (g,h) I get the desired result.
Mathematically, shouldn't the top right corner of the Plane be (2,2) while the centre of the Plane be (1,1).
Please help me.

With the shown setup your center is at 0.5,0.5 and the diameter is 1.
That does get you a circle spanning the 0..1/0..1 coordinate range of a texture.
Try using a 4x4 plane. It probably will give you an insight:
The texture coordinates and the object/vertex coordinates are different.

Related

projecting points onto the sky

If I had a sphere with unit radius, and I had some points defined as latitudes and longitudes on that sphere, and I had a camera defined with a vertical and horizontal field of view angle which is always in the centre of the sphere. How can I project these points onto that camera?
A point at direction (x,y,z) at infinity has homogeneous coordinates of (x,y,z,0). So assuming that you use a typical view-projection matrices to describe your camera model, it is as simple as calculating
P * V * ( cos(lon)*cos(lat), sin(lon)*cos(lat), sin(lat), 0 )'
and then proceeding with a perspective divide and rasterization.

Can I use homography to project camera image points to the ground (2D plane)?

My problem is quite simple yet I struggle to solve it correctly.
I have a camera looking towards the ground and I know all the parameters of the shot. So, using some maths I was able to compute the 4 points defining the field of view of the camera (the coordinates on the ground of each image's corners).
Now, from the coordinates (x, y) of a pixel of the image, I would like to know its real coordinates projected on the ground.
I thought that homography was the way to go, but I read here and there that "homography maps a plane seen from a camera to the same plane seen from another" which is a slightly different problem.
What should I use, please?
Edit: Here is an example.
Given this image:
I know everything about the camera that took the picture (height, angles of view, orientation), so I could calculate the coordinates of the four corners forming its field of view on the ground, for example (in centimeters, relative to the camera position, clockwise from top-left): (-300, 500), (300, 500), (100, 50), (-100, 50).
Knowing that the coordinates on the image of the blade of grass are (1750, 480), how can I know its actual coordinates on the ground?
By "knowing everything" about the camera, do you mean you have the camera FOV, rotation and translation with respect to the ground plane? Then it's trivial, right?
Write the camera matrix K = [[f, 0, w/2],[0, f, h/2],[0, 0, 1]]. Let R and t be respectively the 3x3 rotation matrix and 3x1 translation from camera to ground. A point on the ray going through a given pixel p=[u, v, 1] has camera coordinates r = inv(K) * p. Express it in world coordinates as R * r + t, intersect with the ground plane and you are done.

Formula for calculating camera x,y,z position to force 3D point to appear at left side of the screen and rightmost position on the globe

I'd need a formula to calculate 3D position and direction or orientation of a camera in a following situation:
Camera starting position is looking directly into center of the Earth. Green line goes straight up to the sky
Position that camera needs to move to is looking like this
Starting position probably shouldn't matter, but the question is:
How to calculate camera position and direction given 3D coordinates of any point on the globe. In the camera final position, the distance from Earth is always fixed. From desired camera point of view, the chosen point should appear at the rightmost point of a globe.
I think what you want for camera position is a point on the intersection of a plane parallel to the tangent plane at the location, but somewhat further from the Center, and a sphere representing the fixed distance the camera should be from the center. The intersection will be a circle, so there are infinitely many camera positions that work.
Camera direction will be 1/2 determined by the location and 1/2 determined by how much earth you want in the picture.
Suppose (0,0,0) is the center of the earth, Re is the radius of the earth, and (a,b,c) is the location on the earth you want to look at. If it's in terms of latitude and longitude you should convert to Cartesian coordinates which is straightforward. Your camera should be on a plane perpendicular to the vector (a,b,c) and at a height kRe above the earth where k>1 is some number you can adjust. The equation for the plane is then ax+by+cz=d where d = kRe^2. Note that the plane passes through the point (ka,kb,kc) in space, which is what we wanted.
Since you want the camera to be at a certain height above the earth, say h*Re where 1 < k < h, you need to find points on ax+by+cz=d for which x^2+y^2+z^2 = h^2*Re^2. So we need the intersection of the plane and a sphere. It will be easier to manage if we have a coordinate system on the plane, which we get from an orthonormal system which includes (a,b,c). A good candidate for the second vector in the orthonormal system is the projection of the z-axis (polar axis, I assume). Projecting (0,0,1) onto (a,b,c),
proj_(a,b,c)(0,0,1) = (a,b,c).(0,0,1)/|(a,b,c)|^2 (a,b,c)
= c/Re^2 (a,b,c)
Then the "horizontal component" of (0,0,1) is
u = proj_Plane(0,0,1) = (0,0,1) - c/Re^2 (a,b,c)
= (-ac/Re^2,-bc/Re^2,1-c^2/Re^2)
You can normalize the vector to length 1 if you wish but there's no need. However, you do need to calculate and store the square of the length of the vector, namely
|u|^2 = ((ac)^2 + (bc)^2 + (Re^2-c^2))/Re^4
We could complicate this further by taking the cross product of (0,0,1) and the previous vector to get the third vector in the orthonormal system, then obtain a parametric equation for the intersection of the plane and sphere on which the camera lies, but if you just want the simplest answer we won't do that.
Now we need to solve for t such that
|(ka,kb,kc)+t(-ac/Re^2,-bc/Re^2,1-c^2/Re^2)|^2 = h^2 Re^2
|(ka,kb,kc)|^2 + 2t (a,b,c).u + t^2 |u|^2 = h^2 Re^2
Since (a,b,c) and u are perpendicular, the middle term drops out, and you have
t^2 = (h^2 Re^2 - k^2 Re^2)/|u|^2.
Substituting that value of t into
(ka,kb,kc)+t(-ac/Re^2,-bc/Re^2,1-c^2/Re^2)
gives the position of the camera in space.
As for direction, you'll have to experiment with that a bit. Some vector that looks like
(a,b,c) + s(-ac/Re^2,-bc/Re^2,1-c^2/Re^2)
should work. It's hard to say a priori because it depends on the camera magnification, width of the view screen, etc. I'm not sure offhand whether you'll need positive or negative values for s. You may also need to rotate the camera viewport, possibly by 90 degrees, I'm not sure.
If this doesn't work out, it's possible I made an error. Let me know how it works out and I'll check.

How to find view point coordinates?

I have azimuth , elevation and direction vector of the sun.. i want to place a view point on sun ray direction with some distance. Can anyone describe or provide a link to a resource that will help me understand and implement the required steps?
I used cartesian coordinate system to find direction vector from azimuth and elevation.and then for find
viewport origin.image for this question
x = distance
y = distance* tan azimuth
z = distance * tan elevation.
i want to find that distance value... how?
azimutal coordinate system is referencing to NEH (geometric North East High(Up)) reference frame !!!
in your link to image it is referencing to -Y axis which is not true unless you are not rendering the world but doing some nonlinear graph-plot projection so which one it is?
btw here ECEF/WGS84 and NEH you can find out how to compute NEH for WGS84
As I can see you have bad computation between coordinates so just to be clear this is how it looks like:
on the left is global Earth view and one NEH computed for its position (its origin). In the middle is surface aligned side view and on the right is surface aligned top view. Blue magenta green are input azimutal coordinates, Brown are x,y,z cartesian projections (where the coordinate is on its axis) so:
Dist'= Dist *cos(Elev );
z = Dist *sin(Elev );
x = Dist'*cos(Azimut);
y =-Dist'*sin(Azimut);
if you use different reference frame or axis orientations then change it accordingly ...
I suspect you use 4x4 homogenous transform matrices
for representing coordinate systems and also to hold your view-port so look here:
transform matrix anatomy
constructing the view-port
You need X,Y,Z axis vectors and O origin position. O you already have (at least you think) and Z axis is the ray direction so you should have it too. Now just compute X,Y as alignment to something (else the view will rotate around the ray) I use NEH for that so:
view.Z=Ray.Dir // ray direction
view.Y=NEH.Z // NEH up vector
view.X=view.Y x view.Z // cross product make view.X axis perpendicular to Y ansd Z
view.Y=view.Z x view.X // just to make all three axises perpendicular to each other
view.O=ground position - (distance*Ray.Dir);
To make it a valid view_port you have to:
view = inverse(view)*projection_matrix;
You need inverse matrix computation for that
if you want the whole thing
Then you also want to add the Sun/Earth position computation in that case look here:
complete Earth-Sun position by Kepler's equation
The distance
Now that is clear what is behind you just need to set the distance if you want to set it to Sun then it will be distance=1.0 AU; (astronomical unit) but that is huge distance and if you have perspective your earth will be very small instead use some closer distance to match your view size look here:
How to position the camera so that the object always has the same size

Libgdx - Keeping an object at certain distance and direction from other object

So let's say I have 2 objects. One with the sprite of a circle, other with the sprite of triangle.
My triangle object is set to the position of mouse in every step of the game, while circle is either standing in place or just moving in its own way, whatever.
What I want to do is to have the TRIANGLE move around the circle, but not on it's own, rather on the way your cursor is positioned.
So basically, calculate degree between circle's center and triangle's center. Whenever they are far from each other I just set triangle position to mouse position, BUT when you hover your mouse too close (past some X distance) you can't get any closer (the TRIANGLE is then positioned at maximum that X distance in the direction from circle center to mouse point)
I'll add a picture and hopefully you can get what I mean.
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/23334107/help2.png
Steps:
1. Calculate the distance between the cursor and the center of the circle. If it is more than the 'limit' then set the triangle's position to the cursor's position and skip to step 4.
2. Obtain the angle formed between the center of the circle and the cursor.
3. Calculate the new Cartesian coordinates (x, y) of the triangle based of off the polar coordinates we have now (angle and radius). The radius will be set to the limit of the circle before we calculate x and y, because we want the triangle to be prevented from entering this limit.
4. Rotate the image of the triangle to 1.5708-angle where angle was found in step 2. (1.5708, or pi/2, in radians is equivalent to 90°)
Details:
1. The distance between two points (x1, y1) and (x2, y2) is sqrt((x1-x2)*(x1-x2) + (y1-y2)*(y1-y2))
2. The angle (in radians) can be calculated with
double angle = Math.atan2(circleY-cursorY, cursorX-circleX);
The seemingly mistaken difference in order of circleY-cursorY and cursorX-circleX is an artefact of the coordinate system in most programming languages. (The y coordinate increases downwards instead of upwards, as it does in mathematics, while the x coordinate increases in concord with math - to the right.)
3. To convert polar coordinates to Cartesian coordinates use these conversions:
triangle.setX( cos(angle)*limit );
triangle.setY( sin(angle)*limit );
where limit is the distance you want the triangle to remain from the circle.
4. In order to get your triangle to 'face' the circle (as you illustrated), you have to rotate it using the libgdx Sprite function setRotation. It will rotate around the point set with setOrigin.
Now, you have to rotate by 1.5708-angle – this is because of further differences between angles in mathematics and angles in programming! The atan2 function returns the angle as measured mathematically, with 0° at three o'clock and increasing counterclockwise. The setRotation function (as far as I can tell) has 0° at twelve o'clock and increases clockwise. Also, we have to convert from radians to degrees. In short, this should work, but I haven't tested it:
triangle.setRotation(Math.toDegrees(1.4708-angle));
Hope this helps!

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