I am trying to make an image move towards my mouse pointer. Basically, I get the angle between the points, and move along the x axis by the cosine of the angle, and move along the y axis the sine of the angle.
However, I don't have a good way of calculating the angle. I get the difference in x and the difference in y, and use arctangent of Δy/Δx. The resulting angle in quadrant 1 is correct, but the other three quadrants are wrong. Quadrant 2 ranges from -1 to -90 degrees. Quadrant 3 is always equal to quadrant 1, and quadrant 4 always equals quadrant 4. Is there an equation that I can use to find the angle between the two points from 1-360 degrees?
Note: I cannot use atan2(), and I do not know what a vector is.
// This working code is for Windows HDC mouse coordinates gives the angle back that is used in Windows. It assumes point 1 is your origin point
// Tested and working on Visual Studio 2017 using two mouse coordinates in HDC.
//
// Code to call our function.
float angler = get_angle_2points(Point1X, Point1Y, Point2X, Point2Y);
// Takes two window coordinates (points), turns them into vectors using the origin and calculates the angle around the x-axis between them.
// This function can be used for any HDC window. I.e., two mouse points.
float get_angle_2points(int p1x, int p1y, int p2x,int p2y)
{
// Make point1 the origin, and make point2 relative to the origin so we do point1 - point1, and point2-point1,
// Since we don’t need point1 for the equation to work, the equation works correctly with the origin 0,0.
int deltaY = p2y - p1y;
int deltaX = p2x - p1x; // Vector 2 is now relative to origin, the angle is the same, we have just transformed it to use the origin.
float angleInDegrees = atan2(deltaY, deltaX) * 180 / 3.141;
angleInDegrees *= -1; // Y axis is inverted in computer windows, Y goes down, so invert the angle.
//Angle returned as:
// 90
// 135 45
//
// 180 Origin 0
//
//
// -135 -45
//
// -90
// The returned angle can now be used in the C++ window function used in text angle alignment. I.e., plf->lfEscapement = angle*10;
return angleInDegrees;
}
The answers regarding atan2 are correct. For reference, here is atan2 in Scratch block form:
If you're unable to use atan2() directly, you could implement its internal calculations on your own:
atan2(y,x) = atan(y/x) if x>0
atan(y/x) + π if x<0 and y>0
atan(y/x) - π if x<0 and y<0
This is the code I use, and it seems to work perfectly fine.
atan(x/y) + (180*(y<0))
where X is the difference between the Xs of the points (x2 - x1), and Y is the difference between the Ys (y2 - y1).
atan((x2-x1)/(y1-y2)) + (180*((y1-y2)<0))
Related
I need to calculate the angles to through the ball in that direction for a given speed and the point where it should land after thrown.
The horizontal angle is easy(We know both start and step points).How to calculate the vertical angle of projection.There is gravy applying on object.
Time of travel will be usual as bowling time(time between ball release and occurring step) as per video.
Is there a way directly in unity3d?
Watch this video for 8 seconds for clear understating of this question.
According to the Wikipedia page Trajectory of a projectile, the "Angle of reach" (The angle you want to know) is calculated as follows:
θ = 1/2 * arcsin(gd/v²)
In this formula, g is the gravitational constant 9.81, d is the distance you want the projectile to travel, and v is the velocity at which the object is thrown.
Code to calculate this could look something like this:
float ThrowAngle(Vector3 destination, float velocity)
{
const float g = 9.81f;
float distance = Vector3.Distance(transform.position, destination);
//assuming you want degrees, otherwise just drop the Rad2Deg.
return Mathf.Rad2Deg * (0.5f * Asin((g*distance)/Mathf.Pow(velocity, 2f)));
}
This will give you the angle assuming no air resistance etc. exist in your game.
If your destination and your "throwing point" are not at the same height, you may want to set both to y=0 first, otherwise, errors may occur.
EDIT:
Considering that your launch point is higher up than the destination, this formula from the same page should work:
θ = arctan(v² (+/-) √(v^4-g(gx² + 2yv²))/gx)
Here, x is the range, or distance, and y is the altitude (relative to the launch point).
Code:
float ThrowAngle(Vector3 start, Vector3 destination, float v)
{
const float g = 9.81f;
float xzd = Mathf.Sqrt(Mathf.Pow(destination.x - start.x, 2) + Mathf.Pow(destination.z - start.z, 2));
float yd = destination.y - start.y;
//assuming you want degrees, otherwise just drop the Rad2Deg. Split into two lines for better readability.
float sqrt = (Mathf.Pow(v,4) - g * (g*Mathf.Pow(xzd,2) + 2*yd*Mathf.Pow(v,2))/g*xzd);
//you could also implement a solution which uses both values in some way, but I left that out for simplicity.
return Mathf.Atan(Mathf.Pow(v, 2) + sqrt);
}
I have two vectors in a game. One vector is the player, one vector is an object. I also have a vector that specifies the direction the player if facing. The direction vector has no z part. It is a point that has a magnitude of 1 placed somewhere around the origin.
I want to calculate the angle between the direction the soldier is currently facing and the object, so I can correctly pan some audio (stereo only).
The diagram below describes my problem. I want to calculate the angle between the two dashed lines. One dashed line connects the player and the object, and the other is a line representing the direction the player is facing from the point the player is at.
At the moment, I am doing this (assume player, object and direction are all vectors with 3 points, x, y and z):
Vector3d v1 = direction;
Vector3d v2 = object - player;
v1.normalise();
v2.normalise();
float angle = acos(dotProduct(v1, v2));
But it seems to give me incorrect results. Any advice?
Test of code:
Vector3d soldier = Vector3d(1.f, 1.f, 0.f);
Vector3d object = Vector3d(1.f, -1.f, 0.f);
Vector3d dir = Vector3d(1.f, 0.f, 0.f);
Vector3d v1 = dir;
Vector3d v2 = object - soldier;
long steps = 360;
for (long step = 0; step < steps; step++) {
float rad = (float)step * (M_PI / 180.f);
v1.x = cosf(rad);
v1.y = sinf(rad);
v1.normalise();
float dx = dotProduct(v2, v1);
float dy = dotProduct(v2, soldier);
float vangle = atan2(dx, dy);
}
You shoud always use atan2 when computing angular deltas, and then normalize.
The reason is that for example acos is a function with domain -1...1; even normalizing if the input absolute value (because of approximations) gets bigger than 1 the function will fail even if it's clear that in such a case you would have liked an angle of 0 or PI instead. Also acos cannot measure the full range -PI..PI and you'd need to use explicitly sign tests to find the correct quadrant.
Instead atan2 only singularity is at (0, 0) (where of course it doesn't make sense to compute an angle) and its codomain is the full circle -PI...PI.
Here is an example in C++
// Absolute angle 1
double a1 = atan2(object.y - player.y, object.x - player.x);
// Absolute angle 2
double a2 = atan2(direction.y, direction.x);
// Relative angle
double rel_angle = a1 - a2;
// Normalize to -PI .. +PI
rel_angle -= floor((rel_angle + PI)/(2*PI)) * (2*PI) - PI;
In the case of a general 3d orientation you need two orthogonal directions, e.g. the vector of where the nose is pointing to and the vector to where your right ear is.
In that case the formulas are just slightly more complex, but simpler if you have the dot product handy:
// I'm assuming that '*' is defined as the dot product
// between two vectors: x1*x2 + y1*y2 + z1*z2
double dx = (object - player) * nose_direction;
double dy = (object - player) * right_ear_direction;
double angle = atan2(dx, dy); // Already in -PI ... PI range
In 3D space, you also need to compute the axis:
Vector3d axis = normalise(crossProduct(normalise(v1), normalise(v2)));
I have a renderer using directx and openGL, and a 3d scene. The viewport and the window are of the same dimensions.
How do I implement picking given mouse coordinates x and y in a platform independent way?
If you can, do the picking on the CPU by calculating a ray from the eye through the mouse pointer and intersect it with your models.
If this isn't an option I would go with some type of ID rendering. Assign each object you want to pick a unique color, render the objects with these colors and finally read out the color from the framebuffer under the mouse pointer.
EDIT: If the question is how to construct the ray from the mouse coordinates you need the following: a projection matrix P and the camera transform C. If the coordinates of the mouse pointer is (x, y) and the size of the viewport is (width, height) one position in clip space along the ray is:
mouse_clip = [
float(x) * 2 / float(width) - 1,
1 - float(y) * 2 / float(height),
0,
1]
(Notice that I flipped the y-axis since often the origin of the mouse coordinates are in the upper left corner)
The following is also true:
mouse_clip = P * C * mouse_worldspace
Which gives:
mouse_worldspace = inverse(C) * inverse(P) * mouse_clip
We now have:
p = C.position(); //origin of camera in worldspace
n = normalize(mouse_worldspace - p); //unit vector from p through mouse pos in worldspace
Here's the viewing frustum:
First you need to determine where on the nearplane the mouse click happened:
rescale the window coordinates (0..640,0..480) to [-1,1], with (-1,-1) at the bottom-left corner and (1,1) at the top-right.
'undo' the projection by multiplying the scaled coordinates by what I call the 'unview' matrix: unview = (P * M).inverse() = M.inverse() * P.inverse(), where M is the ModelView matrix and P is the projection matrix.
Then determine where the camera is in worldspace, and draw a ray starting at the camera and passing through the point you found on the nearplane.
The camera is at M.inverse().col(4), i.e. the final column of the inverse ModelView matrix.
Final pseudocode:
normalised_x = 2 * mouse_x / win_width - 1
normalised_y = 1 - 2 * mouse_y / win_height
// note the y pos is inverted, so +y is at the top of the screen
unviewMat = (projectionMat * modelViewMat).inverse()
near_point = unviewMat * Vec(normalised_x, normalised_y, 0, 1)
camera_pos = ray_origin = modelViewMat.inverse().col(4)
ray_dir = near_point - camera_pos
Well, pretty simple, the theory behind this is always the same
1) Unproject two times your 2D coordinate onto the 3D space. (each API has its own function, but you can implement your own if you want). One at Min Z, one at Max Z.
2) With these two values calculate the vector that goes from Min Z and point to Max Z.
3) With the vector and a point calculate the ray that goes from Min Z to MaxZ
4) Now you have a ray, with this you can do a ray-triangle/ray-plane/ray-something intersection and get your result...
I have little DirectX experience, but I'm sure it's similar to OpenGL. What you want is the gluUnproject call.
Assuming you have a valid Z buffer you can query the contents of the Z buffer at a mouse position with:
// obtain the viewport, modelview matrix and projection matrix
// you may keep the viewport and projection matrices throughout the program if you don't change them
GLint viewport[4];
GLdouble modelview[16];
GLdouble projection[16];
glGetIntegerv(GL_VIEWPORT, viewport);
glGetDoublev(GL_MODELVIEW_MATRIX, modelview);
glGetDoublev(GL_PROJECTION_MATRIX, projection);
// obtain the Z position (not world coordinates but in range 0 - 1)
GLfloat z_cursor;
glReadPixels(x_cursor, y_cursor, 1, 1, GL_DEPTH_COMPONENT, GL_FLOAT, &z_cursor);
// obtain the world coordinates
GLdouble x, y, z;
gluUnProject(x_cursor, y_cursor, z_cursor, modelview, projection, viewport, &x, &y, &z);
if you don't want to use glu you can also implement the gluUnProject you could also implement it yourself, it's functionality is relatively simple and is described at opengl.org
Ok, this topic is old but it was the best I found on the topic, and it helped me a bit, so I'll post here for those who are are following ;-)
This is the way I got it to work without having to compute the inverse of Projection matrix:
void Application::leftButtonPress(u32 x, u32 y){
GL::Viewport vp = GL::getViewport(); // just a call to glGet GL_VIEWPORT
vec3f p = vec3f::from(
((float)(vp.width - x) / (float)vp.width),
((float)y / (float)vp.height),
1.);
// alternatively vec3f p = vec3f::from(
// ((float)x / (float)vp.width),
// ((float)(vp.height - y) / (float)vp.height),
// 1.);
p *= vec3f::from(APP_FRUSTUM_WIDTH, APP_FRUSTUM_HEIGHT, 1.);
p += vec3f::from(APP_FRUSTUM_LEFT, APP_FRUSTUM_BOTTOM, 0.);
// now p elements are in (-1, 1)
vec3f near = p * vec3f::from(APP_FRUSTUM_NEAR);
vec3f far = p * vec3f::from(APP_FRUSTUM_FAR);
// ray in world coordinates
Ray ray = { _camera->getPos(), -(_camera->getBasis() * (far - near).normalize()) };
_ray->set(ray.origin, ray.dir, 10000.); // this is a debugging vertex array to see the Ray on screen
Node* node = _scene->collide(ray, Transform());
cout << "node is : " << node << endl;
}
This assumes a perspective projection, but the question never arises for the orthographic one in the first place.
I've got the same situation with ordinary ray picking, but something is wrong. I've performed the unproject operation the proper way, but it just doesn't work. I think, I've made some mistake, but can't figure out where. My matix multiplication , inverse and vector by matix multiplications all seen to work fine, I've tested them.
In my code I'm reacting on WM_LBUTTONDOWN. So lParam returns [Y][X] coordinates as 2 words in a dword. I extract them, then convert to normalized space, I've checked this part also works fine. When I click the lower left corner - I'm getting close values to -1 -1 and good values for all 3 other corners. I'm then using linepoins.vtx array for debug and It's not even close to reality.
unsigned int x_coord=lParam&0x0000ffff; //X RAW COORD
unsigned int y_coord=client_area.bottom-(lParam>>16); //Y RAW COORD
double xn=((double)x_coord/client_area.right)*2-1; //X [-1 +1]
double yn=1-((double)y_coord/client_area.bottom)*2;//Y [-1 +1]
_declspec(align(16))gl_vec4 pt_eye(xn,yn,0.0,1.0);
gl_mat4 view_matrix_inversed;
gl_mat4 projection_matrix_inversed;
cam.matrixProjection.inverse(&projection_matrix_inversed);
cam.matrixView.inverse(&view_matrix_inversed);
gl_mat4::vec4_multiply_by_matrix4(&pt_eye,&projection_matrix_inversed);
gl_mat4::vec4_multiply_by_matrix4(&pt_eye,&view_matrix_inversed);
line_points.vtx[line_points.count*4]=pt_eye.x-cam.pos.x;
line_points.vtx[line_points.count*4+1]=pt_eye.y-cam.pos.y;
line_points.vtx[line_points.count*4+2]=pt_eye.z-cam.pos.z;
line_points.vtx[line_points.count*4+3]=1.0;
I'm writing a script where icons rotate around a given pivot (or origin). I've been able to make this work for rotating the icons around an ellipse but I also want to have them move around the perimeter of a rectangle of a certain width, height and origin.
I'm doing it this way because my current code stores all the coords in an array with each angle integer as the key, and reusing this code would be much easier to work with.
If someone could give me an example of a 100x150 rectangle, that would be great.
EDIT: to clarify, by rotating around I mean moving around the perimeter (or orbiting) of a shape.
You know the size of the rectangle and you need to split up the whole angle interval into four different, so you know if a ray from the center of the rectangle intersects right, top, left or bottom of the rectangle.
If the angle is: -atan(d/w) < alfa < atan(d/w) the ray intersects the right side of the rectangle. Then since you know that the x-displacement from the center of the rectangle to the right side is d/2, the displacement dy divided by d/2 is tan(alfa), so
dy = d/2 * tan(alfa)
You would handle this similarily with the other three angle intervals.
Ok, here goes. You have a rect with width w and depth d. In the middle you have the center point, cp. I assume you want to calculate P, for different values of the angle alfa.
I divided the rectangle in four different areas, or angle intervals (1 to 4). The interval I mentioned above is the first one to the right. I hope this makes sense to you.
First you need to calculate the angle intervals, these are determined completely by w and d. Depending on what value alfa has, calculate P accordingly, i.e. if the "ray" from CP to P intersects the upper, lower, right or left sides of the rectangle.
Cheers
This was made for and verified to work on the Pebble smartwatch, but modified to be pseudocode:
struct GPoint {
int x;
int y;
}
// Return point on rectangle edge. Rectangle is centered on (0,0) and has a width of w and height of h
GPoint getPointOnRect(int angle, int w, int h) {
var sine = sin(angle), cosine = cos(angle); // Calculate once and store, to make quicker and cleaner
var dy = sin>0 ? h/2 : h/-2; // Distance to top or bottom edge (from center)
var dx = cos>0 ? w/2 : w/-2; // Distance to left or right edge (from center)
if(abs(dx*sine) < abs(dy*cosine)) { // if (distance to vertical line) < (distance to horizontal line)
dy = (dx * sine) / cosine; // calculate distance to vertical line
} else { // else: (distance to top or bottom edge) < (distance to left or right edge)
dx = (dy * cosine) / sine; // move to top or bottom line
}
return GPoint(dx, dy); // Return point on rectangle edge
}
Use:
rectangle_width = 100;
rectangle_height = 150;
rectangle_center_x = 300;
rectangle_center_y = 300;
draw_rect(rectangle_center_x - (rectangle_width/2), rectangle_center_y - (rectangle_center_h/2), rectangle_width, rectangle_height);
GPoint point = getPointOnRect(angle, rectangle_width, rectangle_height);
point.x += rectangle_center_x;
point.y += rectangle_center_y;
draw_line(rectangle_center_x, rectangle_center_y, point.x, point.y);
One simple way to do this using an angle as a parameter is to simply clip the X and Y values using the bounds of the rectangle. In other words, calculate position as though the icon will rotate around a circular or elliptical path, then apply this:
(Assuming axis-aligned rectangle centered at (0,0), with X-axis length of XAxis and Y-axis length of YAxis):
if (X > XAxis/2)
X = XAxis/2;
if (X < 0 - XAxis/2)
X = 0 - XAxis/2;
if (Y > YAxis/2)
Y = YAxis/2;
if (Y < 0 - YAxis/2)
Y = 0 - YAxis/2;
The problem with this approach is that the angle will not be entirely accurate and the speed along the perimeter of the rectangle will not be constant. Modelling an ellipse that osculates the rectangle at its corners can minimize the effect, but if you are looking for a smooth, constant-speed "orbit," this method will not be adequate.
If think you mean rotate like the earth rotates around the sun (not the self-rotation... so your question is about how to slide along the edges of a rectangle?)
If so, you can give this a try:
# pseudo coode
for i = 0 to 499
if i < 100: x++
else if i < 250: y--
else if i < 350: x--
else y++
drawTheIcon(x, y)
Update: (please see comment below)
to use an angle, one line will be
y / x = tan(th) # th is the angle
the other lines are simple since they are just horizontal or vertical. so for example, it is x = 50 and you can put that into the line above to get the y. do that for the intersection of the horizontal line and vertical line (for example, angle is 60 degree and it shoot "NorthEast"... now you have two points. Then the point that is closest to the origin is the one that hits the rectangle first).
Use a 2D transformation matrix. Many languages (e.g. Java) support this natively (look up AffineTransformation); otherwise, write out a routine to do rotation yourself, once, debug it well, and use it forever. I must have five of them written in different languages.
Once you can do the rotation simply, find the location on the rectangle by doing line-line intersection. Find the center of the orbited icon by intersecting two lines:
A ray from your center of rotation at the angle you desire
One of the four sides, bounded by what angle you want (the four quadrants).
Draw yourself a sketch on a piece of paper with a rectangle and a centre of rotation. First translate the rectangle to centre at the origin of your coordinate system (remember the translation parameters, you'll need to reverse the translation later). Rotate the rectangle so that its sides are parallel to the coordinate axes (same reason).
Now you have a triangle with known angle at the origin, the opposite side is of known length (half of the length of one side of the rectangle), and you can now:
-- solve the triangle
-- undo the rotation
-- undo the translation
I'm trying to make a triangle (isosceles triangle) to move around the screen and at the same time slightly rotate it when a user presses a directional key (like right or left).
I would like the nose (top point) of the triangle to lead the triangle at all times. (Like that old asteroids game).
My problem is with the maths behind this. At every X time interval, I want the triangle to move in "some direction", I need help finding this direction (x and y increments/decrements).
I can find the center point (Centroid) of the triangle, and I have the top most x an y points, so I have a line vector to work with, but not a clue as to "how" to work with it.
I think it has something to do with the old Sin and Cos methods and the amount (angle) that the triangle has been rotated, but I'm a bit rusty on that stuff.
Any help is greatly appreciated.
The arctangent (inverse tangent) of vy/vx, where vx and vy are the components of your (centroid->tip) vector, gives you the angle the vector is facing.
The classical arctangent gives you an angle normalized to -90° < r < +90° degrees, however, so you have to add or subtract 90 degrees from the result depending on the sign of the result and the sign of vx.
Luckily, your standard library should proive an atan2() function that takes vx and vy seperately as parameters, and returns you an angle between 0° and 360°, or -180° and +180° degrees. It will also deal with the special case where vx=0, which would result in a division by zero if you were not careful.
See http://www.arctangent.net/atan.html or just search for "arctangent".
Edit: I've used degrees in my post for clarity, but Java and many other languages/libraries work in radians where 180° = π.
You can also just add vx and vy to the triangle's points to make it move in the "forward" direction, but make sure that the vector is normalized (vx² + vy² = 1), else the speed will depend on your triangle's size.
#Mark:
I've tried writing a primer on vectors, coordinates, points and angles in this answer box twice, but changed my mind on both occasions because it would take too long and I'm sure there are many tutorials out there explaining stuff better than I ever can.
Your centroid and "tip" coordinates are not vectors; that is to say, there is nothing to be gained from thinking of them as vectors.
The vector you want, vForward = pTip - pCentroid, can be calculated by subtracting the coordinates of the "tip" corner from the centroid point. The atan2() of this vector, i.e. atan2(tipY-centY, tipX-centX), gives you the angle your triangle is "facing".
As for what it's relative to, it doesn't matter. Your library will probably use the convention that the increasing X axis (---> the right/east direction on presumably all the 2D graphs you've seen) is 0° or 0π. The increasing Y (top, north) direction will correspond to 90° or (1/2)π.
It seems to me that you need to store the rotation angle of the triangle and possibly it's current speed.
x' = x + speed * cos(angle)
y' = y + speed * sin(angle)
Note that angle is in radians, not degrees!
Radians = Degrees * RadiansInACircle / DegreesInACircle
RadiansInACircle = 2 * Pi
DegressInACircle = 360
For the locations of the vertices, each is located at a certain distance and angle from the center. Add the current rotation angle before doing this calculation. It's the same math as for figuring the movement.
Here's some more:
Vectors represent displacement. Displacement, translation, movement or whatever you want to call it, is meaningless without a starting point, that's why I referred to the "forward" vector above as "from the centroid," and that's why the "centroid vector," the vector with the x/y components of the centroid point doesn't make sense. Those components give you the displacement of the centroid point from the origin. In other words, pOrigin + vCentroid = pCentroid. If you start from the 0 point, then add a vector representing the centroid point's displacement, you get the centroid point.
Note that:
vector + vector = vector
(addition of two displacements gives you a third, different displacement)
point + vector = point
(moving/displacing a point gives you another point)
point + point = ???
(adding two points doesn't make sense; however:)
point - point = vector
(the difference of two points is the displacement between them)
Now, these displacements can be thought of in (at least) two different ways. The one you're already familiar with is the rectangular (x, y) system, where the two components of a vector represent the displacement in the x and y directions, respectively. However, you can also use polar coordinates, (r, Θ). Here, Θ represents the direction of the displacement (in angles relative to an arbitary zero angle) and r, the distance.
Take the (1, 1) vector, for example. It represents a movement one unit to the right and one unit upwards in the coordinate system we're all used to seeing. The polar equivalent of this vector would be (1.414, 45°); the same movement, but represented as a "displacement of 1.414 units in the 45°-angle direction. (Again, using a convenient polar coordinate system where the East direction is 0° and angles increase counter-clockwise.)
The relationship between polar and rectangular coordinates are:
Θ = atan2(y, x)
r = sqrt(x²+y²) (now do you see where the right triangle comes in?)
and conversely,
x = r * cos(Θ)
y = r * sin(Θ)
Now, since a line segment drawn from your triangle's centroid to the "tip" corner would represent the direction your triangle is "facing," if we were to obtain a vector parallel to that line (e.g. vForward = pTip - pCentroid), that vector's Θ-coordinate would correspond to the angle that your triangle is facing.
Take the (1, 1) vector again. If this was vForward, then that would have meant that your "tip" point's x and y coordinates were both 1 more than those of your centroid. Let's say the centroid is on (10, 10). That puts the "tip" corner over at (11, 11). (Remember, pTip = pCentroid + vForward by adding "+ pCentroid" to both sides of the previous equation.) Now in which direction is this triangle facing? 45°, right? That's the Θ-coordinate of our (1, 1) vector!
keep the centroid at the origin. use the vector from the centroid to the nose as the direction vector. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coordinate_rotation#Two_dimensions will rotate this vector. construct the other two points from this vector. translate the three points to where they are on the screen and draw.
double v; // velocity
double theta; // direction of travel (angle)
double dt; // time elapsed
// To compute increments
double dx = v*dt*cos(theta);
double dy = v*dt*sin(theta);
// To compute position of the top of the triangle
double size; // distance between centroid and top
double top_x = x + size*cos(theta);
double top_y = y + size*sin(theta);
I can see that I need to apply the common 2d rotation formulas to my triangle to get my result, Im just having a little bit of trouble with the relationships between the different components here.
aib, stated that:
The arctangent (inverse tangent) of
vy/vx, where vx and vy are the
components of your (centroid->tip)
vector, gives you the angle the vector
is facing.
Is vx and vy the x and y coords of the centriod or the tip? I think Im getting confused as to the terminology of a "vector" here. I was under the impression that a Vector was just a point in 2d (in this case) space that represented direction.
So in this case, how is the vector of the centroid->tip calculated? Is it just the centriod?
meyahoocomlorenpechtel stated:
It seems to me that you need to store
the rotation angle of the triangle and
possibly it's current speed.
What is the rotation angle relative to? The origin of the triangle, or the game window itself? Also, for future rotations, is the angle the angle from the last rotation or the original position of the triangle?
Thanks all for the help so far, I really appreciate it!
you will want the topmost vertex to be the centroid in order to achieve the desired effect.
First, I would start with the centroid rather than calculate it. You know the position of the centroid and the angle of rotation of the triangle, I would use this to calculate the locations of the verticies. (I apologize in advance for any syntax errors, I have just started to dabble in Java.)
//starting point
double tip_x = 10;
double tip_y = 10;
should be
double center_x = 10;
double center_y = 10;
//triangle details
int width = 6; //base
int height = 9;
should be an array of 3 angle, distance pairs.
angle = rotation_angle + vertex[1].angle;
dist = vertex[1].distance;
p1_x = center_x + math.cos(angle) * dist;
p1_y = center_y - math.sin(angle) * dist;
// and the same for the other two points
Note that I am subtracting the Y distance. You're being tripped up by the fact that screen space is inverted. In our minds Y increases as you go up--but screen coordinates don't work that way.
The math is a lot simpler if you track things as position and rotation angle rather than deriving the rotation angle.
Also, in your final piece of code you're modifying the location by the rotation angle. The result will be that your ship turns by the rotation angle every update cycle. I think the objective is something like Asteroids, not a cat chasing it's tail!