I've been generating islands using a combination of Perlin noise and radial gradients -- as outlined in this awesome Reddit answer. It's working pretty well, but obviously the islands are all circular in shape, and I'd like more variety.
I was wondering if there is a general method of converting equations for geometrical shapes into equations for gradients. Eg. an equation that is to its shape what Euclidean distance is for a circle. Is this possible? Is it obvious?
Defining an implicit surface for a geometric shape, or the Level Set (wiki), is basically what you are asking for. For example, the implicit surface of a circle with radius R is
f(x,y) = x^2 + y^2 - R^2
Note that when f(x,y) = 0, that defines the surface of the circle. When f(x,y) < 0, then x^2 + y^2 < R^2, which means the point (x,y) is inside the circle centered at the origin. Finally f(x,y) > 0 means the point (x,y) is outside the circle. In order to create an image out of this, you would need to iterate over every pixel and evaluate f(x,y), while finding the min and max value, then scale the whole image to have a range between 0 and 1.
This would technically not give you distance. The circle is a special case because the equation for it (x^2 + y^2) is the squared distance function from the origin. This does give you the effect you are most likely looking for your problem - negative inside, positive inside (or vice versa), while the magnitude is scaled w.r.t. to the distance of a given point to the surface.
For any equation you come up with for a geometric shape, you need to get all the terms on one side to form f(x,y). For example, take x*y = log(x). That can become x*y - log(x) = 0, so f(x,y) = x*y - log(x).
Related
I have coordinates corresponding to a set of 2D contours, each corresponding to different heights. These contours do not draw out a perfect ellipsoid in 3D, and instead what I would like to do is to find the best fitting ellipsoid. I do not have any knowledge on the origin of this ellipsoid.
My first thought was to incorporate some type of least squares algorithm, where I find the ellipsoid parameters that minimize the distance between points. I imagine this would be quite expensive and not too far from a brute force approach. I am convinced there is a more elegant and efficient way of doing this. If there is an existing library that handles this (preferably in Python) that would be even better.
I have already seen a related question (Fitting an ellipsoid to 3D data points), but figured I would ask again as it has been over a decade since that post.
So you have a set of (x,y) values for each contour, which describe a portion of an ellipse (blue dots below).
The best fit ellipse is described by the general equation
A x^2 + B y^2 + 2C x y + 2D x + 2E y = 1
and once the coefficients (A,B,C,D,E) are found, the ellipse of fully described. See below in how to find the the curve coordinates (x,y) from the coefficients and a parameter t=0 .. 1.
To find the coefficients of the ellipse, form 5 vectors, each a column of a n×5 matrix Q
for i = 1 to n
Q(i,1) = x(i)^2
Q(i,2) = y(i)^2
Q(i,3) = 2*x(i)*y(i)
Q(i,4) = 2*x(i)
Q(i,5) = 2*y(i)
next i
and a vector K filled with 1 for the right-hand side
for i = 1 to n
K(i) = 1.0
next i
Find the coefficients using a least-squares fit with some linear algebra
[A,B,C,D,E] = inv(tr(Q)*Q)*tr(Q)*K
where tr(Q) is the transpose of Q and * is matrix/vector product
Now we need to extract the geometric properties of the ellipse from the coefficient. I want to have a the semi-major axis, b the semi-minor axis, φ the rotation angle, xc the x-axis center, yc the y-axis center.
xc = -(B*D-C*E)/(A*B-(C^2))
yc = -(A*E-C*D)/(A*B-(C^2))
φ = atan( 2*C/(A-B) )/2
a = SQRT(2*(A*(B+E^2)+B*D^2-C*(C+2*D*E))/((A*B-C^2)*(A+B-SQRT((A-B)^2+4*C^2))))
b = SQRT(2*(A*(B+E^2)+B*D^2-C*(C+2*D*E))/((A*B-C^2)*(A+B+SQRT((A-B)^2+4*C^2))))
Finally to plot the ellipse you need to generate a set of points (x,y) from the curve parameter t=0..1 using the above 5 coefficients.
Generate the centered aligned coordinates (u,v) with
u = a*cos(2*π*t)
v = b*sin(2*π*t)
Generate the centered rotated coordinates (x',y') with
x' = u*cos(φ) - v*sin(φ)
y' = u*sin(φ) + v*cos(φ)
Generate the ellipse coordinates (x,y) with
x = x' + xc
y = y' + yc
The result is observed above in the first picture.
Now for the total solution, each 2D slice would have its own ellipse. But all the slices would not generate an ellipsoid this way.
Extending the above into 3D coordinates (x,y,z) is doable, but the math is quite involved and I feel [SO] is not a good place to develop such an algorithm. You can hack it together, by finding the average center for each slice (weighted by the ellipse area π*a*b). Additionally, the rotation angle should be the same for all contours, and so another averaging is needed. Finally, the major and minor axis values would fall on an elliptical curve along the z-axis and it would require another least-fit solution. This one is driven by the equation
(x/a)^2 + (y/b)^2 + (z/c)^2 = 1
but rather in the aligned coordinates (u,v,w)
(u/a)^2 + (v/b)^2 + (w/c)^2 = 1
This is more of a general Maths question (might be silly even). But in high school we learn to identify the roots of an equation via it's plot right.
For example, for the equation
y = x^2 - 1
The blue line would show us the roots. This is when the blue line crosses x, so +- 1.
Now, if we said that the equation had a real and an imaginary part, so that it is
y = x^2 - 1 + (x^2 - 0.5)i
as given in the Mathematica screenshot, then we have a real part which crosses zero, and an imaginary part which also crosses zero but at a different x. So my question is: is it possible to identify the roots of such an equation by simply looking at the real and imaginary parts of the plot?
Note: part of my confusion is that if I use FindRoot, in Mathematica, I get either 0.877659 - 0.142424i or -0.877659 + 0.142424i. So might be some fundamental property in Maths I don't know about which prevents one from identifying roots of a complex function through separating real and imaginary parts...
we have a real part which crosses zero, and an imaginary part which also crosses zero but at a different x.
Those are graphs of the real and imaginary parts plotted for real values of x. If they both crossed the horizontal axis at the same point(s), that would mean the equation has real root(s), since both real and imaginary parts would be zero for some real value of x. However, this equation has no real roots, so the crossing points are different.
So my question is: is it possible to identify the roots of such an equation by simply looking at the real and imaginary parts of the plot?
f(x) = x^2 - 1 + i (x^2 - 0.5) is a complex function of a complex variable, which maps a complex variable x = a + i b to the complex value f(x) = Re(f(x)) + i Im(f(x)).
Each of Re(f(x)) and Im(f(x)) is a real function of a complex variable. Such functions can be plotted in 3D by representing x = a + i b as a point in the (a, b) plane, and the value of the function along the third dimension, say c. For example, f(x) has the following graphs for the real and imaginary parts.
The cross-sections of the two surfaces by the horizontal plane c = 0 are pairs of curves where each function is zero, respectively. It follows that the intersections of those curves are the points where Re(f(x)) = Im(f(x)) = 0, which means they are the roots of the equation f(x) = 0.
Since f(x) = 0 is a quadratic equation, it must have two roots, and those two points are in fact ±(0.877659 - 0.142424 i), as can be verified by direct calculation.
Given a point p exterior to an axially aligned, origin centered ellipse E, find the (upto) four unique normals to E passing through p.
This is not a Mathematica question. Direct computation is too slow; I am willing to sacrifice precision and accuracy for speed.
I have searched the web, but all I found involved overly complex calculations which if implemented directly appear to lack the performance I need. Is there a more "programmatical" way to do this, like using matrices or scaling the ellipse into a circle?
Let's assume the ellipse E is in "standard position", center at the origin and axes parallel to the coordinate axes:
(x/a)^2 + (y/b)^2 = 1 where a > b > 0
The boundary cases a=b are circles, where the normal lines are simply ones that pass through the center (origin) and are thus easy to find. So we omit discussion of these cases.
The slope of the tangent to the ellipse at any point (x,y) may be found by implicit differentiation:
dy/dx = -(b^2 x)/(a^2 y)
For the line passing through (x,y) and a specified point p = (u,v) not on the ellipse, that is normal to ellipse E when its slope is the negative reciprocal of dy/dx:
(y-v)/(x-u) * (-b^2 x)/(a^2 y) = -1 (N)
which simplifies to:
(x - (1+g)u) * (y + gv) = -g(1+g)uv where g = b^2/(a^2 - b^2)
In this form we recognize it is the equation for a right rectangular hyperbola. Depending on how many points of intersection there are between the ellipse and the hyperbola (2,3,4), we have that many normals to E passing through p.
By reflected symmetry, if p is assumed exterior to E, we may take p to be in the first quadrant:
(u/a)^2 + (v/b)^2 > 1 (exterior to E)
u,v > 0 (1'st quadrant)
We could have boundary cases where u=0 or v=0, i.e. point p lies on an axis of E, but these cases may be reduced to solving a quadratic, because two normals are the (coinciding) lines through the endpoints of that axis. We defer further discussion of these special cases for the moment.
Here's an illustration with a=u=5,b=v=3 in which only one branch of the hyperbola intersects E, and there will be only two normals:
If the system of two equations in two unknowns (x,y) is reduced to one equation in one unknown, the simplest root-finding method to code is a bisection method, but knowing something about the possible locations of roots/intersections will expedite our search. The intersection in the first quadrant is the nearest point of E to p, and likewise the intersection in the third quadrant is the farthest point of E from p. If the point p were a good bit closer to the upper endpoint of the minor axis, the branches of the hyperbola would shift together enough to create up to two more points of intersection in the fourth quadrant.
One approach would be to parameterize E by points of intersection with the x-axis. The lines from p normal to the ellipse must intersect the major axis which is a finite interval [-a,+a]. We can test both the upper and lower points of intersection q=(x,y) of a line passing through p=(u,v) and (z,0) as z sweeps from -a to +a, looking for places where the ellipse and hyperbola intersect.
In more detail:
1. Find the upper and lower points `q` of intersection of E with the
line through `p` and `(z,0)` (amounts to solving a quadratic)
3. Check the sign of a^2 y(x-u) - b^2 x(y-v) at `q=(x,y)`, because it
is zero if and only `q` is a point of normal intersection
Once a subinterval is detected (either for upper or lower portion) where the sign changes, it can be refined to get the desired accuracy. If only modest accuracy is needed, there may be no need to use faster root finding methods, but even if they are needed, having a short subinterval that isolates a root (or root pair in the fourth quadrant) will be useful.
** more to come comparing convergence of various methods **
I had to solve a problem similar to this, for GPS initialization. The question is: what is the latitude of a point interior to the Earth, especially near the center, and is it single-valued? There are lots of methods for converting ECEF cartesian coordinates to geodetic latitude, longitude and altitude (look up "ECEF to Geodetic"). We use a fast one with only one divide and sqrt per iteration, instead of several trig evaluations like most methods, but since I can't find it in the wild, I can't give it to you here. I would start with Lin and Wang's method, since it only uses divisions in its iterations. Here is a plot of the ellipsoid surface normals to points within 100 km of Earth's center (North is up in the diagram, which is really ECEF Z, not Y):
The star-shaped "caustic" in the figure center traces the center of curvature of the WGS-84 ellipsoid as latitude is varied from pole to equator. Note that the center of curvature at the poles is on the opposite side of the equator, due to polar flattening, and that the center of curvature at the equator is nearer to the surface than the axis of rotation.
Wherever lines cross, there is more than one latitude for that cartesian position. The green circle shows where our algorithm was struggling. If you consider that I cut off these normal vectors where they reach the axis, you would have even more normals for a given position for the problem considered in this SO thread. You would have 4 latitudes / normals inside the caustic, and 2 outside.
The problem can be expressed as the solution of a cubic equation which
gives 1, 2, or 3 real roots. For the derivation and closed form
solution see Appendix B of Geodesics on an ellipsoid of revolution. The boundary between 1 and 3 solutions is an astroid.
I'm learning Unity3d + some basic maths I've forgotten by messing around.
Heres what I'm doing now..
As you can probably tell the sides of this shape form a parabola.
The distance they are out from the centre is the base radius + the height squared * by a constant (0.05 in this image)
The code generating this is very simple..
for (int changer = 1; changer > -2; changer-=2) {
Vector3 newPos = new Vector3(
transform.position.x
,transform.position.y + currentheight*changer
,transform.position.z - RadiusAtZero -(Mathf.Pow(currentheight,2)*CurveMultiplier)
);
var newFleck = Instantiate(Fleck, newPos, Quaternion.identity)as GameObject;
newFleck.transform.RotateAround(transform.position,Vector3.up,angle*changer);
FleckList.Add(newFleck );
}
Btw the for loop and 'changer' mirror everything so 'currentheight' is really just the distance from the centreline of the parabola.
Anyway I'd like to make the cubes (or flecks as I've called them) be angled so that they are tangentional to the parabola I have made.
I need to determine the angle of a tangent to the parabola at particular point.
I found this
to find the line tangent to y=x^2 -3 at (1, -2) we can simultaneously solve
y=x^2 -3 and y+2=m(x-1) and set the discriminant equal to zero
But I dont know how to implement this. Also I reckon my 'CurveMultiplier' constant makes my parabola equation different from that one.
Can someone write some code that determines the angle? (and also maybe explain it)
Update.
Here is fixed version using the derivative of the equation. (Also I have changed from boxes to tetrahedrons and few other superficial things)
The easiest solution is to use a derivative for the parabolic equation.
In your picture then I'll assume Y is vertical, X horizontal, and Z in/out of the screen. Then the parabola being rotated, based upon your description, is:
f(h) = 0.05*h^2 + R
(h is height, R is base radius). If you imagine a plane containing the Y axis, you can rotate the plane around the Y axis at any angle and the dual parabola looks the same.
The derivative of a parabolic equation of the form f(x) = C*h^2 + R is f'(x) = 2*C*h, which is the slope of the tangent at h. In this specific case, that would be:
f'(h) = 0.1*h
Since the cross-sectional plane has an angle relative to X and Z axes, then that tangent will also have the same angular component (you have a rotated parabola).
Depending upon the units given for the constants in f(h), particularly the 0.05 value, you may have to adjust this for the correct results.
I would like to draw an animation of a polar curve (a spiral) being graphed. I am using javascript and canvas. Currently, I am using setInterval to call a draw function, which graphs an x and y coordinate found from a parametric representation of the polar curve (x and y in terms of theta). I am incrementing theta by 0.01, from 0 to 2*pi, once for every call to draw(). The problem is that I wish for the animation to draw the same amount of the curve for each call to draw, so that the drawing appears to progress with uniform speed. It doesn't matter if the time between each call to draw is different; I just need the speed (in terms of pixels drawn / # of calls to draw) to be constant for the entire awing. In other words, I need the arc length of the segment of the polar graph drawn for each call to draw to be the same. I have no idea how to go about this. Any help/sugestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks
Let f(z) be the theta variable you are referring to in your question. Here are two parametric equations that should be very similar to what you have:
x(f(z)) = f(z)cos(f(z))
y(f(z)) = f(z)sin(f(z))
We can define the position p(f(z)) at f(z) as
p(f(z)) = [x(f(z)), y(f(z))]
The speed s(f(z)) at f(z) is the length of the derivative of p at f(z).
x'(f(z)) = f'(z)cos(f(z)) - f(z)f'(z)sin(f(z))
y'(f(z)) = f'(z)sin(f(z)) + f(z)f'(z)cos(f(z))
s(f(z)) = length(p'(f(z))) = length([x'(f(z)), y'(f(z))])
= length([f'(z)cos(f(z)) - f(z)f'(z)sin(f(z)), f'(z)sin(f(z)) + f(z)f'(z)cos(f(z))])
= sqrt([f'(z)cos(f(z))]2 + [f(z)f'(z)sin(f(z))]2 + [f'(z)sin(f(z))]2 + [f(z)f'(z)cos(f(z))]2)
= sqrt(f'(z) + [f(z)f'(z)]2)
If you want the speed s(f(z)) to be constant at C as z increases at a constant rate of 1, you need to solve this first-order nonlinear ordinary differential equation:
s(f(z)) = sqrt(f'(z) + [f(z)f'(z)]2) = C
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=sqrt%28f%27%28z%29+%2B+%5Bf%28z%29f%27%28z%29%5D%5E2%29+%3D+C
Solving this would give you a function theta = f(z) that you could use to compute theta as you keep increasing z. However, this differential equation has no closed form solution.
In other words, you'll have to make guesses at how much you should increase theta at each step, doing binary search on the delta to add to theta and line integrals over p(t) to evaluate how far each guess moves.
Easier method - change the parameter to setInterval proportional to the step arc length. That way you don't have to try to invert the arc length equation. If the interval starts getting too large, you can adjust the step size, but you can do so approximately.