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How do you find the 3 euler angles between 2 3D vectors?
When I have one Vector and I want to get its rotation, this link can be usually used: Calculate rotations to look at a 3D point?
But how do I do it when calculating them according to one another?
As others have already pointed out, your question should be revised. Let's call your vectors a and b. I assume that length(a)==length(b) > 0 otherwise I cannot answer the question.
Calculate the cross product of your vectors v = a x b; v gives the axis of rotation. By computing the dot product, you can get the cosine of the angle you should rotate with cos(angle)=dot(a,b)/(length(a)length(b)), and with acos you can uniquely determine the angle (#Archie thanks for pointing out my earlier mistake). At this point you have the axis angle representation of your rotation.
The remaining work is to convert this representation to the representation you are looking for: Euler angles. Conversion Axis-Angle to Euler is a way to do it, as you have found it. You have to handle the degenerate case when v = [ 0, 0, 0], that is, when the angle is either 0 or 180 degrees.
I personally don't like Euler angles, they screw up the stability of your app and they are not appropriate for interpolation, see also
Strange behavior with android orientation sensor
Interpolating between rotation matrices
At first you would have to subtract vector one from vector two in order to get vector two relative to vector one. With these values you can calculate Euler angles.
To understand the calculation from vector to Euler intuitively, lets imagine a sphere with the radius of 1 and the origin at its center. A vector represents a point on its surface in 3D coordinates. This point can also be defined by spherical 2D coordinates: latitude and longitude, pitch and yaw respectively.
In order "roll <- pitch <- yaw" calculation can be done as follows:
To calculate the yaw you calculate the tangent of the two planar axes (x and z) considering the quadrant.
yaw = atan2(x, z) *180.0/PI;
Pitch is quite the same but as its plane is rotated along with yaw the 'adjacent' is on two axis. In order to find its length we will have to use the Pythagorean theorem.
float padj = sqrt(pow(x, 2) + pow(z, 2));
pitch = atan2(padj, y) *180.0/PI;
Notes:
Roll can not be calculated as a vector has no rotation around its own axis. I usually set it to 0.
The length of your vector is lost and can not be converted back.
In Euler the order of your axes matters, mix them up and you will get different results.
It took me a lot of time to find this answer so I would like to share it with you now.
first, you need to find the rotation matrix, and then with scipy you can easily find the angles you want.
There is no short way to do this.
so let's first declare some functions...
import numpy as np
from scipy.spatial.transform import Rotation
def normalize(v):
return v / np.linalg.norm(v)
def find_additional_vertical_vector(vector):
ez = np.array([0, 0, 1])
look_at_vector = normalize(vector)
up_vector = normalize(ez - np.dot(look_at_vector, ez) * look_at_vector)
return up_vector
def calc_rotation_matrix(v1_start, v2_start, v1_target, v2_target):
"""
calculating M the rotation matrix from base U to base V
M # U = V
M = V # U^-1
"""
def get_base_matrices():
u1_start = normalize(v1_start)
u2_start = normalize(v2_start)
u3_start = normalize(np.cross(u1_start, u2_start))
u1_target = normalize(v1_target)
u2_target = normalize(v2_target)
u3_target = normalize(np.cross(u1_target, u2_target))
U = np.hstack([u1_start.reshape(3, 1), u2_start.reshape(3, 1), u3_start.reshape(3, 1)])
V = np.hstack([u1_target.reshape(3, 1), u2_target.reshape(3, 1), u3_target.reshape(3, 1)])
return U, V
def calc_base_transition_matrix():
return np.dot(V, np.linalg.inv(U))
if not np.isclose(np.dot(v1_target, v2_target), 0, atol=1e-03):
raise ValueError("v1_target and v2_target must be vertical")
U, V = get_base_matrices()
return calc_base_transition_matrix()
def get_euler_rotation_angles(start_look_at_vector, target_look_at_vector, start_up_vector=None, target_up_vector=None):
if start_up_vector is None:
start_up_vector = find_additional_vertical_vector(start_look_at_vector)
if target_up_vector is None:
target_up_vector = find_additional_vertical_vector(target_look_at_vector)
rot_mat = calc_rotation_matrix(start_look_at_vector, start_up_vector, target_look_at_vector, target_up_vector)
is_equal = np.allclose(rot_mat # start_look_at_vector, target_look_at_vector, atol=1e-03)
print(f"rot_mat # start_look_at_vector1 == target_look_at_vector1 is {is_equal}")
rotation = Rotation.from_matrix(rot_mat)
return rotation.as_euler(seq="xyz", degrees=True)
Finding the XYZ Euler rotation angles from 1 vector to another might give you more than one answer.
Assuming what you are rotation is the look_at_vector of some kind of shape and you want this shape to stay not upside down and still look at the target_look_at_vector
if __name__ == "__main__":
# Example 1
start_look_at_vector = normalize(np.random.random(3))
target_look_at_vector = normalize(np.array([-0.70710688829422, 0.4156269133090973, -0.5720613598823547]))
phi, theta, psi = get_euler_rotation_angles(start_look_at_vector, target_look_at_vector)
print(f"phi_x_rotation={phi}, theta_y_rotation={theta}, psi_z_rotation={psi}")
Now if you want to have a specific role rotation to your shape, my code also supports that!
you just need to give the target_up_vector as a parameter as well.
just make sure it is vertical to the target_look_at_vector that you are giving.
if __name__ == "__main__":
# Example 2
# look and up must be vertical
start_look_at_vector = normalize(np.array([1, 2, 3]))
start_up_vector = normalize(np.array([1, -3, 2]))
target_look_at_vector = np.array([0.19283590755300162, 0.6597510192626469, -0.7263217228739983])
target_up_vector = np.array([-0.13225754322703182, 0.7509361508721898, 0.6469955018014842])
phi, theta, psi = get_euler_rotation_angles(
start_look_at_vector, target_look_at_vector, start_up_vector, target_up_vector
)
print(f"phi_x_rotation={phi}, theta_y_rotation={theta}, psi_z_rotation={psi}")
Getting Rotation Matrix in MATLAB is very easy
e.g.
A = [1.353553385, 0.200000003, 0.35]
B = [1 2 3]
[q] = vrrotvec(A,B)
Rot_mat = vrrotvec2mat(q)
What is the best (fastest) way to compute two vectors that are perpendicular to the third vector(X) and also perpendicular to each other?
This is how am I computing this vectors right now:
// HELPER - unit vector that is NOT parallel to X
x_axis = normalize(X);
y_axis = crossProduct(x_axis, HELPER);
z_axis = crossProduct(x_axis, y_axis);
I know there is infinite number of solutions to this, and I don't care which one will be my solution.
What is behind this question: I need to construct transformation matrix, where I know which direction should X axis (first column in matrix) be pointing. I need to calculate Y and Z axis (second and third column). As we know, all axes must be perpendicular to each other.
What I have done, provided that X<>0 or Y<>0 is
A = [-Y, X, 0]
B = [-X*Z, -Y*Z, X*X+Y*Y]
and then normalize the vectors.
[ X,Y,Z]·[-Y,X,0] = -X*Y+Y*X = 0
[ X,Y,Z]·[-X*Z,-Y*Z,X*X+Y*Y] = -X*X*Z-Y*Y*Z+Z*(X*X+Y*Y) = 0
[-Y,X,0]·[-X*Z,-Y*Z,X*X+Y*Y] = Y*X*Z+X*Y*Z = 0
This is called the nullspace of your vector.
If X=0 and Y=0 then A=[1,0,0], B=[0,1,0].
This is the way to do it.
It's also probably the only way to do it. Any other way would be mathematically equivalent.
It may be possible to save a few cycles by opening the crossProduct computation and making sure you're not doing the same multiplications more than once but that's really far into micro-optimization land.
One thing you should be careful is of course the HELPER vector. Not only does it has to be not parallel to X but it's also a good idea that it would be VERY not parallel to X. If X and HELPER are going to be even somewhat parallel, your floating point calculation is going to be unstable and inaccurate. You can test and see what happens if the dot product of X and HELPER is something like 0.9999.
There is a method to find a good HELPER (really - it is ready to be your y_axis).
Let's X = (ax, ay, az). Choose 2 elements with bigger magnitude, exchange them, and negate one of them. Set to zero third element (with the least magnitude). This vector is perpendicular to X.
Example:
if (ax <= ay) and (ax <= az) then HELPER = (0, -az, ay) (or (0, az, -ay))
X*HELPER = 0*0 - ay*az + az*ay = 0
if (ay <= ax) and (ay <= az) then HELPER = (az, 0, -ay)
For a good HELPER vector: find the coordinate of X with the smallest absolute value, and use that coordinate axis:
absX = abs(X.x); absY = abs(X.y); absZ = abs(X.z);
if(absX < absY) {
if(absZ < absX)
HELPER = vector(0,0,1);
else // absX <= absZ
HELPER = vector(1,0,0);
} else { // absY <= absX
if(absZ < absY)
HELPER = vector(0,0,1);
else // absY <= absZ
HELPER = vector(0,1,0);
}
Note: this is effectively very similar to #MBo's answer: taking the cross-product with the smallest coordinate axis is equivalent to setting the smallest coordinate to zero, exchanging the larger two, and negating one.
I think the minimum maximum magnatude out of all element in a unit vector is always greater than 0.577, so you may be able to get away with this:
-> Reduce the problem of finding a perpendicular vector to a 3D vector to a 2D vector by finding any element whose magnatude is greater than say 0.5, then ignore a different element (use 0 in its place) and apply the perpendicular to a 2D vector formula in the remaining elements (for 2D x-axis=(ax,ay) -> y-axis=(-ay,ax))
let x-axis be represented by (ax,ay,az)
if (abs(ay) > 0.5) {
y-axis = normalize((-ay,ax,0))
} else if (abs(az) > 0.5) {
y-axis = normalize((0,-az,ay))
} else if (abs(ax) > 0.5) {
y-axis = normalize((az,0,-ax))
} else {
error("Impossible unit vector")
}
I need to generate a uniformly random point within a circle of radius R.
I realize that by just picking a uniformly random angle in the interval [0 ... 2π), and uniformly random radius in the interval (0 ... R) I would end up with more points towards the center, since for two given radii, the points in the smaller radius will be closer to each other than for the points in the larger radius.
I found a blog entry on this over here but I don't understand his reasoning. I suppose it is correct, but I would really like to understand from where he gets (2/R2)×r and how he derives the final solution.
Update: 7 years after posting this question I still hadn't received a satisfactory answer on the actual question regarding the math behind the square root algorithm. So I spent a day writing an answer myself. Link to my answer.
How to generate a random point within a circle of radius R:
r = R * sqrt(random())
theta = random() * 2 * PI
(Assuming random() gives a value between 0 and 1 uniformly)
If you want to convert this to Cartesian coordinates, you can do
x = centerX + r * cos(theta)
y = centerY + r * sin(theta)
Why sqrt(random())?
Let's look at the math that leads up to sqrt(random()). Assume for simplicity that we're working with the unit circle, i.e. R = 1.
The average distance between points should be the same regardless of how far from the center we look. This means for example, that looking on the perimeter of a circle with circumference 2 we should find twice as many points as the number of points on the perimeter of a circle with circumference 1.
Since the circumference of a circle (2πr) grows linearly with r, it follows that the number of random points should grow linearly with r. In other words, the desired probability density function (PDF) grows linearly. Since a PDF should have an area equal to 1 and the maximum radius is 1, we have
So we know how the desired density of our random values should look like.
Now: How do we generate such a random value when all we have is a uniform random value between 0 and 1?
We use a trick called inverse transform sampling
From the PDF, create the cumulative distribution function (CDF)
Mirror this along y = x
Apply the resulting function to a uniform value between 0 and 1.
Sounds complicated? Let me insert a blockquote with a little side track that conveys the intuition:
Suppose we want to generate a random point with the following distribution:
That is
1/5 of the points uniformly between 1 and 2, and
4/5 of the points uniformly between 2 and 3.
The CDF is, as the name suggests, the cumulative version of the PDF. Intuitively: While PDF(x) describes the number of random values at x, CDF(x) describes the number of random values less than x.
In this case the CDF would look like:
To see how this is useful, imagine that we shoot bullets from left to right at uniformly distributed heights. As the bullets hit the line, they drop down to the ground:
See how the density of the bullets on the ground correspond to our desired distribution! We're almost there!
The problem is that for this function, the y axis is the output and the x axis is the input. We can only "shoot bullets from the ground straight up"! We need the inverse function!
This is why we mirror the whole thing; x becomes y and y becomes x:
We call this CDF-1. To get values according to the desired distribution, we use CDF-1(random()).
…so, back to generating random radius values where our PDF equals 2x.
Step 1: Create the CDF:
Since we're working with reals, the CDF is expressed as the integral of the PDF.
CDF(x) = ∫ 2x = x2
Step 2: Mirror the CDF along y = x:
Mathematically this boils down to swapping x and y and solving for y:
CDF: y = x2
Swap: x = y2
Solve: y = √x
CDF-1: y = √x
Step 3: Apply the resulting function to a uniform value between 0 and 1
CDF-1(random()) = √random()
Which is what we set out to derive :-)
Let's approach this like Archimedes would have.
How can we generate a point uniformly in a triangle ABC, where |AB|=|BC|? Let's make this easier by extending to a parallelogram ABCD. It's easy to generate points uniformly in ABCD. We uniformly pick a random point X on AB and Y on BC and choose Z such that XBYZ is a parallelogram. To get a uniformly chosen point in the original triangle we just fold any points that appear in ADC back down to ABC along AC.
Now consider a circle. In the limit we can think of it as infinitely many isoceles triangles ABC with B at the origin and A and C on the circumference vanishingly close to each other. We can pick one of these triangles simply by picking an angle theta. So we now need to generate a distance from the center by picking a point in the sliver ABC. Again, extend to ABCD, where D is now twice the radius from the circle center.
Picking a random point in ABCD is easy using the above method. Pick a random point on AB. Uniformly pick a random point on BC. Ie. pick a pair of random numbers x and y uniformly on [0,R] giving distances from the center. Our triangle is a thin sliver so AB and BC are essentially parallel. So the point Z is simply a distance x+y from the origin. If x+y>R we fold back down.
Here's the complete algorithm for R=1. I hope you agree it's pretty simple. It uses trig, but you can give a guarantee on how long it'll take, and how many random() calls it needs, unlike rejection sampling.
t = 2*pi*random()
u = random()+random()
r = if u>1 then 2-u else u
[r*cos(t), r*sin(t)]
Here it is in Mathematica.
f[] := Block[{u, t, r},
u = Random[] + Random[];
t = Random[] 2 Pi;
r = If[u > 1, 2 - u, u];
{r Cos[t], r Sin[t]}
]
ListPlot[Table[f[], {10000}], AspectRatio -> Automatic]
Here is a fast and simple solution.
Pick two random numbers in the range (0, 1), namely a and b. If b < a, swap them. Your point is (b*R*cos(2*pi*a/b), b*R*sin(2*pi*a/b)).
You can think about this solution as follows. If you took the circle, cut it, then straightened it out, you'd get a right-angled triangle. Scale that triangle down, and you'd have a triangle from (0, 0) to (1, 0) to (1, 1) and back again to (0, 0). All of these transformations change the density uniformly. What you've done is uniformly picked a random point in the triangle and reversed the process to get a point in the circle.
Note the point density in proportional to inverse square of the radius, hence instead of picking r from [0, r_max], pick from [0, r_max^2], then compute your coordinates as:
x = sqrt(r) * cos(angle)
y = sqrt(r) * sin(angle)
This will give you uniform point distribution on a disk.
http://mathworld.wolfram.com/DiskPointPicking.html
Think about it this way. If you have a rectangle where one axis is radius and one is angle, and you take the points inside this rectangle that are near radius 0. These will all fall very close to the origin (that is close together on the circle.) However, the points near radius R, these will all fall near the edge of the circle (that is, far apart from each other.)
This might give you some idea of why you are getting this behavior.
The factor that's derived on that link tells you how much corresponding area in the rectangle needs to be adjusted to not depend on the radius once it's mapped to the circle.
Edit: So what he writes in the link you share is, "That’s easy enough to do by calculating the inverse of the cumulative distribution, and we get for r:".
The basic premise is here that you can create a variable with a desired distribution from a uniform by mapping the uniform by the inverse function of the cumulative distribution function of the desired probability density function. Why? Just take it for granted for now, but this is a fact.
Here's my somehwat intuitive explanation of the math. The density function f(r) with respect to r has to be proportional to r itself. Understanding this fact is part of any basic calculus books. See sections on polar area elements. Some other posters have mentioned this.
So we'll call it f(r) = C*r;
This turns out to be most of the work. Now, since f(r) should be a probability density, you can easily see that by integrating f(r) over the interval (0,R) you get that C = 2/R^2 (this is an exercise for the reader.)
Thus, f(r) = 2*r/R^2
OK, so that's how you get the formula in the link.
Then, the final part is going from the uniform random variable u in (0,1) you must map by the inverse function of the cumulative distribution function from this desired density f(r). To understand why this is the case you need to find an advanced probability text like Papoulis probably (or derive it yourself.)
Integrating f(r) you get F(r) = r^2/R^2
To find the inverse function of this you set u = r^2/R^2 and then solve for r, which gives you r = R * sqrt(u)
This totally makes sense intuitively too, u = 0 should map to r = 0. Also, u = 1 shoudl map to r = R. Also, it goes by the square root function, which makes sense and matches the link.
Let ρ (radius) and φ (azimuth) be two random variables corresponding to polar coordinates of an arbitrary point inside the circle. If the points are uniformly distributed then what is the disribution function of ρ and φ?
For any r: 0 < r < R the probability of radius coordinate ρ to be less then r is
P[ρ < r] = P[point is within a circle of radius r] = S1 / S0 =(r/R)2
Where S1 and S0 are the areas of circle of radius r and R respectively.
So the CDF can be given as:
0 if r<=0
CDF = (r/R)**2 if 0 < r <= R
1 if r > R
And PDF:
PDF = d/dr(CDF) = 2 * (r/R**2) (0 < r <= R).
Note that for R=1 random variable sqrt(X) where X is uniform on [0, 1) has this exact CDF (because P[sqrt(X) < y] = P[x < y**2] = y**2 for 0 < y <= 1).
The distribution of φ is obviously uniform from 0 to 2*π. Now you can create random polar coordinates and convert them to Cartesian using trigonometric equations:
x = ρ * cos(φ)
y = ρ * sin(φ)
Can't resist to post python code for R=1.
from matplotlib import pyplot as plt
import numpy as np
rho = np.sqrt(np.random.uniform(0, 1, 5000))
phi = np.random.uniform(0, 2*np.pi, 5000)
x = rho * np.cos(phi)
y = rho * np.sin(phi)
plt.scatter(x, y, s = 4)
You will get
The reason why the naive solution doesn't work is that it gives a higher probability density to the points closer to the circle center. In other words the circle that has radius r/2 has probability r/2 of getting a point selected in it, but it has area (number of points) pi*r^2/4.
Therefore we want a radius probability density to have the following property:
The probability of choosing a radius smaller or equal to a given r has to be proportional to the area of the circle with radius r. (because we want to have a uniform distribution on the points and larger areas mean more points)
In other words we want the probability of choosing a radius between [0,r] to be equal to its share of the overall area of the circle. The total circle area is pi*R^2, and the area of the circle with radius r is pi*r^2. Thus we would like the probability of choosing a radius between [0,r] to be (pi*r^2)/(pi*R^2) = r^2/R^2.
Now comes the math:
The probability of choosing a radius between [0,r] is the integral of p(r) dr from 0 to r (that's just because we add all the probabilities of the smaller radii). Thus we want integral(p(r)dr) = r^2/R^2. We can clearly see that R^2 is a constant, so all we need to do is figure out which p(r), when integrated would give us something like r^2. The answer is clearly r * constant. integral(r * constant dr) = r^2/2 * constant. This has to be equal to r^2/R^2, therefore constant = 2/R^2. Thus you have the probability distribution p(r) = r * 2/R^2
Note: Another more intuitive way to think about the problem is to imagine that you are trying to give each circle of radius r a probability density equal to the proportion of the number of points it has on its circumference. Thus a circle which has radius r will have 2 * pi * r "points" on its circumference. The total number of points is pi * R^2. Thus you should give the circle r a probability equal to (2 * pi * r) / (pi * R^2) = 2 * r/R^2. This is much easier to understand and more intuitive, but it's not quite as mathematically sound.
It really depends on what you mean by 'uniformly random'. This is a subtle point and you can read more about it on the wiki page here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bertrand_paradox_%28probability%29, where the same problem, giving different interpretations to 'uniformly random' gives different answers!
Depending on how you choose the points, the distribution could vary, even though they are uniformly random in some sense.
It seems like the blog entry is trying to make it uniformly random in the following sense: If you take a sub-circle of the circle, with the same center, then the probability that the point falls in that region is proportional to the area of the region. That, I believe, is attempting to follow the now standard interpretation of 'uniformly random' for 2D regions with areas defined on them: probability of a point falling in any region (with area well defined) is proportional to the area of that region.
Here is my Python code to generate num random points from a circle of radius rad:
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import numpy as np
rad = 10
num = 1000
t = np.random.uniform(0.0, 2.0*np.pi, num)
r = rad * np.sqrt(np.random.uniform(0.0, 1.0, num))
x = r * np.cos(t)
y = r * np.sin(t)
plt.plot(x, y, "ro", ms=1)
plt.axis([-15, 15, -15, 15])
plt.show()
I think that in this case using polar coordinates is a way of complicate the problem, it would be much easier if you pick random points into a square with sides of length 2R and then select the points (x,y) such that x^2+y^2<=R^2.
Solution in Java and the distribution example (2000 points)
public void getRandomPointInCircle() {
double t = 2 * Math.PI * Math.random();
double r = Math.sqrt(Math.random());
double x = r * Math.cos(t);
double y = r * Math.sin(t);
System.out.println(x);
System.out.println(y);
}
based on previus solution https://stackoverflow.com/a/5838055/5224246 from #sigfpe
I used once this method:
This may be totally unoptimized (ie it uses an array of point so its unusable for big circles) but gives random distribution enough. You could skip the creation of the matrix and draw directly if you wish to. The method is to randomize all points in a rectangle that fall inside the circle.
bool[,] getMatrix(System.Drawing.Rectangle r) {
bool[,] matrix = new bool[r.Width, r.Height];
return matrix;
}
void fillMatrix(ref bool[,] matrix, Vector center) {
double radius = center.X;
Random r = new Random();
for (int y = 0; y < matrix.GetLength(0); y++) {
for (int x = 0; x < matrix.GetLength(1); x++)
{
double distance = (center - new Vector(x, y)).Length;
if (distance < radius) {
matrix[x, y] = r.NextDouble() > 0.5;
}
}
}
}
private void drawMatrix(Vector centerPoint, double radius, bool[,] matrix) {
var g = this.CreateGraphics();
Bitmap pixel = new Bitmap(1,1);
pixel.SetPixel(0, 0, Color.Black);
for (int y = 0; y < matrix.GetLength(0); y++)
{
for (int x = 0; x < matrix.GetLength(1); x++)
{
if (matrix[x, y]) {
g.DrawImage(pixel, new PointF((float)(centerPoint.X - radius + x), (float)(centerPoint.Y - radius + y)));
}
}
}
g.Dispose();
}
private void button1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
System.Drawing.Rectangle r = new System.Drawing.Rectangle(100,100,200,200);
double radius = r.Width / 2;
Vector center = new Vector(r.Left + radius, r.Top + radius);
Vector normalizedCenter = new Vector(radius, radius);
bool[,] matrix = getMatrix(r);
fillMatrix(ref matrix, normalizedCenter);
drawMatrix(center, radius, matrix);
}
First we generate a cdf[x] which is
The probability that a point is less than distance x from the centre of the circle. Assume the circle has a radius of R.
obviously if x is zero then cdf[0] = 0
obviously if x is R then the cdf[R] = 1
obviously if x = r then the cdf[r] = (Pi r^2)/(Pi R^2)
This is because each "small area" on the circle has the same probability of being picked, So the probability is proportionally to the area in question. And the area given a distance x from the centre of the circle is Pi r^2
so cdf[x] = x^2/R^2 because the Pi cancel each other out
we have cdf[x]=x^2/R^2 where x goes from 0 to R
So we solve for x
R^2 cdf[x] = x^2
x = R Sqrt[ cdf[x] ]
We can now replace cdf with a random number from 0 to 1
x = R Sqrt[ RandomReal[{0,1}] ]
Finally
r = R Sqrt[ RandomReal[{0,1}] ];
theta = 360 deg * RandomReal[{0,1}];
{r,theta}
we get the polar coordinates
{0.601168 R, 311.915 deg}
This might help people interested in choosing an algorithm for speed; the fastest method is (probably?) rejection sampling.
Just generate a point within the unit square and reject it until it is inside a circle. E.g (pseudo-code),
def sample(r=1):
while True:
x = random(-1, 1)
y = random(-1, 1)
if x*x + y*y <= 1:
return (x, y) * r
Although it may run more than once or twice sometimes (and it is not constant time or suited for parallel execution), it is much faster because it doesn't use complex formulas like sin or cos.
The area element in a circle is dA=rdr*dphi. That extra factor r destroyed your idea to randomly choose a r and phi. While phi is distributed flat, r is not, but flat in 1/r (i.e. you are more likely to hit the boundary than "the bull's eye").
So to generate points evenly distributed over the circle pick phi from a flat distribution and r from a 1/r distribution.
Alternatively use the Monte Carlo method proposed by Mehrdad.
EDIT
To pick a random r flat in 1/r you could pick a random x from the interval [1/R, infinity] and calculate r=1/x. r is then distributed flat in 1/r.
To calculate a random phi pick a random x from the interval [0, 1] and calculate phi=2*pi*x.
You can also use your intuition.
The area of a circle is pi*r^2
For r=1
This give us an area of pi. Let us assume that we have some kind of function fthat would uniformly distrubute N=10 points inside a circle. The ratio here is 10 / pi
Now we double the area and the number of points
For r=2 and N=20
This gives an area of 4pi and the ratio is now 20/4pi or 10/2pi. The ratio will get smaller and smaller the bigger the radius is, because its growth is quadratic and the N scales linearly.
To fix this we can just say
x = r^2
sqrt(x) = r
If you would generate a vector in polar coordinates like this
length = random_0_1();
angle = random_0_2pi();
More points would land around the center.
length = sqrt(random_0_1());
angle = random_0_2pi();
length is not uniformly distributed anymore, but the vector will now be uniformly distributed.
There is a linear relationship between the radius and the number of points "near" that radius, so he needs to use a radius distribution that is also makes the number of data points near a radius r proportional to r.
I don't know if this question is still open for a new solution with all the answer already given, but I happened to have faced exactly the same question myself. I tried to "reason" with myself for a solution, and I found one. It might be the same thing as some have already suggested here, but anyway here it is:
in order for two elements of the circle's surface to be equal, assuming equal dr's, we must have dtheta1/dtheta2 = r2/r1. Writing expression of the probability for that element as P(r, theta) = P{ r1< r< r1 + dr, theta1< theta< theta + dtheta1} = f(r,theta)*dr*dtheta1, and setting the two probabilities (for r1 and r2) equal, we arrive to (assuming r and theta are independent) f(r1)/r1 = f(r2)/r2 = constant, which gives f(r) = c*r. And the rest, determining the constant c follows from the condition on f(r) being a PDF.
I am still not sure about the exact '(2/R2)×r' but what is apparent is the number of points required to be distributed in given unit 'dr' i.e. increase in r will be proportional to r2 and not r.
check this way...number of points at some angle theta and between r (0.1r to 0.2r) i.e. fraction of the r and number of points between r (0.6r to 0.7r) would be equal if you use standard generation, since the difference is only 0.1r between two intervals. but since area covered between points (0.6r to 0.7r) will be much larger than area covered between 0.1r to 0.2r, the equal number of points will be sparsely spaced in larger area, this I assume you already know, So the function to generate the random points must not be linear but quadratic, (since number of points required to be distributed in given unit 'dr' i.e. increase in r will be proportional to r2 and not r), so in this case it will be inverse of quadratic, since the delta we have (0.1r) in both intervals must be square of some function so it can act as seed value for linear generation of points (since afterwords, this seed is used linearly in sin and cos function), so we know, dr must be quadratic value and to make this seed quadratic, we need to originate this values from square root of r not r itself, I hope this makes it little more clear.
Such a fun problem.
The rationale of the probability of a point being chosen lowering as distance from the axis origin increases is explained multiple times above. We account for that by taking the root of U[0,1].
Here's a general solution for a positive r in Python 3.
import numpy
import math
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
def sq_point_in_circle(r):
"""
Generate a random point in an r radius circle
centered around the start of the axis
"""
t = 2*math.pi*numpy.random.uniform()
R = (numpy.random.uniform(0,1) ** 0.5) * r
return(R*math.cos(t), R*math.sin(t))
R = 200 # Radius
N = 1000 # Samples
points = numpy.array([sq_point_in_circle(R) for i in range(N)])
plt.scatter(points[:, 0], points[:,1])
A programmer solution:
Create a bit map (a matrix of boolean values). It can be as large as you want.
Draw a circle in that bit map.
Create a lookup table of the circle's points.
Choose a random index in this lookup table.
const int RADIUS = 64;
const int MATRIX_SIZE = RADIUS * 2;
bool matrix[MATRIX_SIZE][MATRIX_SIZE] = {0};
struct Point { int x; int y; };
Point lookupTable[MATRIX_SIZE * MATRIX_SIZE];
void init()
{
int numberOfOnBits = 0;
for (int x = 0 ; x < MATRIX_SIZE ; ++x)
{
for (int y = 0 ; y < MATRIX_SIZE ; ++y)
{
if (x * x + y * y < RADIUS * RADIUS)
{
matrix[x][y] = true;
loopUpTable[numberOfOnBits].x = x;
loopUpTable[numberOfOnBits].y = y;
++numberOfOnBits;
} // if
} // for
} // for
} // ()
Point choose()
{
int randomIndex = randomInt(numberOfBits);
return loopUpTable[randomIndex];
} // ()
The bitmap is only necessary for the explanation of the logic. This is the code without the bitmap:
const int RADIUS = 64;
const int MATRIX_SIZE = RADIUS * 2;
struct Point { int x; int y; };
Point lookupTable[MATRIX_SIZE * MATRIX_SIZE];
void init()
{
int numberOfOnBits = 0;
for (int x = 0 ; x < MATRIX_SIZE ; ++x)
{
for (int y = 0 ; y < MATRIX_SIZE ; ++y)
{
if (x * x + y * y < RADIUS * RADIUS)
{
loopUpTable[numberOfOnBits].x = x;
loopUpTable[numberOfOnBits].y = y;
++numberOfOnBits;
} // if
} // for
} // for
} // ()
Point choose()
{
int randomIndex = randomInt(numberOfBits);
return loopUpTable[randomIndex];
} // ()
1) Choose a random X between -1 and 1.
var X:Number = Math.random() * 2 - 1;
2) Using the circle formula, calculate the maximum and minimum values of Y given that X and a radius of 1:
var YMin:Number = -Math.sqrt(1 - X * X);
var YMax:Number = Math.sqrt(1 - X * X);
3) Choose a random Y between those extremes:
var Y:Number = Math.random() * (YMax - YMin) + YMin;
4) Incorporate your location and radius values in the final value:
var finalX:Number = X * radius + pos.x;
var finalY:Number = Y * radois + pos.y;
I'm developing a simple 2D board game using hexagonal tile maps, I've read several articles (including the gamedev one's, which are linked every time there's a question on hexagonal tiles) on how to draw hexes on the screen and how to manage the movement (though much of it I had already done before). My main problem is finding the adjacent tiles based on a given radius.
This is how my map system works:
(0,0) (0,1) (0,2) (0,3) (0,4)
(1,0) (1,1) (1,2) (1,3) (1,4)
(2,0) (2,1) (2,2) (2,3) (2,4)
(3,0) (3,1) (3,2) (3,3) (3,4)
etc...
What I'm struggling with is the fact that I cant just 'select' the adjacent tiles by using for(x-range;x+range;x++); for(y-range;y+range;y++); because it selects unwanted tiles (in the example I gave, selecting the (1,1) tile and giving a range of 1 would also give me the (3,0) tile (the ones I actually need being (0,1)(0,2)(1,0)(1,2)(2,1)(2,2) ), which is kinda adjacent to the tile (because of the way the array is structured) but it's not really what I want to select. I could just brute force it, but that wouldn't be beautiful and would probably not cover every aspect of 'selecting radius thing'.
Can someone point me in the right direction here?
What is a hexagonal grid?
What you can see above are the two grids. It's all in the way you number your tiles and the way you understand what a hexagonal grid is. The way I see it, a hexagonal grid is nothing more than a deformed orthogonal one.
The two hex tiles I've circled in purple are theoretically still adjacent to 0,0. However, due to the deformation we've gone through to obtain the hex-tile grid from the orthogonal one, the two are no longer visually adjacent.
Deformation
What we need to understand is the deformation happened in a certain direction, along a [(-1,1) (1,-1)] imaginary line in my example. To be more precise, it is as if the grid has been elongated along that line, and squashed along a line perpendicular to that. So naturally, the two tiles on that line got spread out and are no longer visually adjacent. Conversely, the tiles (1, 1) and (-1, -1) which were diagonal to (0, 0) are now unusually close to (0, 0), so close in fact that they are now visually adjacent to (0, 0). Mathematically however, they are still diagonals and it helps to treat them that way in your code.
Selection
The image I show illustrates a radius of 1. For a radius of two, you'll notice (2, -2) and (-2, 2) are the tiles that should not be included in the selection. And so on. So, for any selection of radius r, the points (r, -r) and (-r, r) should not be selected. Other than that, your selection algorithm should be the same as a square-tiled grid.
Just make sure you have your axis set up properly on the hexagonal grid, and that you are numbering your tiles accordingly.
Implementation
Let's expand on this for a bit. We now know that movement along any direction in the grid costs us 1. And movement along the stretched direction costs us 2. See (0, 0) to (-1, 1) for example.
Knowing this, we can compute the shortest distance between any two tiles on such a grid, by decomposing the distance into two components: a diagonal movement and a straight movement along one of the axis.
For example, for the distance between (1, 1) and (-2, 5) on a normal grid we have:
Normal distance = (1, 1) - (-2, 5) = (3, -4)
That would be the distance vector between the two tiles were they on a square grid. However we need to compensate for the grid deformation so we decompose like this:
(3, -4) = (3, -3) + (0, -1)
As you can see, we've decomposed the vector into one diagonal one (3, -3) and one straight along an axis (0, -1).
We now check to see if the diagonal one is along the deformation axis which is any point (n, -n) where n is an integer that can be either positive or negative.
(3, -3) does indeed satisfy that condition, so this diagonal vector is along the deformation. This means that the length (or cost) of this vector instead of being 3, it will be double, that is 6.
So to recap. The distance between (1, 1) and (-2, 5) is the length of (3, -3) plus the length of (0, -1). That is distance = 3 * 2 + 1 = 7.
Implementation in C++
Below is the implementation in C++ of the algorithm I have explained above:
int ComputeDistanceHexGrid(const Point & A, const Point & B)
{
// compute distance as we would on a normal grid
Point distance;
distance.x = A.x - B.x;
distance.y = A.y - B.y;
// compensate for grid deformation
// grid is stretched along (-n, n) line so points along that line have
// a distance of 2 between them instead of 1
// to calculate the shortest path, we decompose it into one diagonal movement(shortcut)
// and one straight movement along an axis
Point diagonalMovement;
int lesserCoord = abs(distance.x) < abs(distance.y) ? abs(distance.x) : abs(distance.y);
diagonalMovement.x = (distance.x < 0) ? -lesserCoord : lesserCoord; // keep the sign
diagonalMovement.y = (distance.y < 0) ? -lesserCoord : lesserCoord; // keep the sign
Point straightMovement;
// one of x or y should always be 0 because we are calculating a straight
// line along one of the axis
straightMovement.x = distance.x - diagonalMovement.x;
straightMovement.y = distance.y - diagonalMovement.y;
// calculate distance
size_t straightDistance = abs(straightMovement.x) + abs(straightMovement.y);
size_t diagonalDistance = abs(diagonalMovement.x);
// if we are traveling diagonally along the stretch deformation we double
// the diagonal distance
if ( (diagonalMovement.x < 0 && diagonalMovement.y > 0) ||
(diagonalMovement.x > 0 && diagonalMovement.y < 0) )
{
diagonalDistance *= 2;
}
return straightDistance + diagonalDistance;
}
Now, given the above implemented ComputeDistanceHexGrid function, you can now have a naive, unoptimized implementation of a selection algorithm that will ignore any tiles further than the specified selection range:
int _tmain(int argc, _TCHAR* argv[])
{
// your radius selection now becomes your usual orthogonal algorithm
// except you eliminate hex tiles too far away from your selection center
// for(x-range;x+range;x++); for(y-range;y+range;y++);
Point selectionCenter = {1, 1};
int range = 1;
for ( int x = selectionCenter.x - range;
x <= selectionCenter.x + range;
++x )
{
for ( int y = selectionCenter.y - range;
y <= selectionCenter.y + range;
++y )
{
Point p = {x, y};
if ( ComputeDistanceHexGrid(selectionCenter, p) <= range )
cout << "(" << x << ", " << y << ")" << endl;
else
{
// do nothing, skip this tile since it is out of selection range
}
}
}
return 0;
}
For a selection point (1, 1) and a range of 1, the above code will display the expected result:
(0, 0)
(0, 1)
(1, 0)
(1, 1)
(1, 2)
(2, 1)
(2, 2)
Possible optimization
For optimizing this, you can include the logic of knowing how far a tile is from the selection point (logic found in ComputeDistanceHexGrid) directly into your selection loop, so you can iterate the grid in a way that avoids out of range tiles altogether.
Simplest method i can think of...
minX = x-range; maxX = x+range
select (minX,y) to (maxX, y), excluding (x,y) if that's what you want to do
for each i from 1 to range:
if y+i is odd then maxX -= 1, otherwise minX += 1
select (minX, y+i) to (maxX, y+i)
select (minX, y-i) to (maxX, y-i)
It may be a little off; i just worked it through in my head. But at the very least, it's an idea of what you need to do.
In C'ish:
void select(int x, int y) {
/* todo: implement this */
/* should ignore coordinates that are out of bounds */
}
void selectRange(int x, int y, int range) {
int minX = x - range, maxX = x + range;
for (int i = minX; i <= maxX; ++i) {
if (i != x) select(i, y);
}
for (int yOff = 1; yOff <= range; ++yOff) {
if ((y+yOff) % 2 == 1) --maxX; else ++minX;
for (int i=minX; i<=maxX; ++i) {
select(i, y+yOff);
select(i, y-yOff);
}
}
}
I have a unit vector in 3D space whose direction I wish to perturb by some angle within the range 0 to theta, with the position of the vector remaining the same. What is a way I can accomplish this?
Thanks.
EDIT: After thinking about the way I posed the question, it seems to be a bit too general. I'll attempt to make it more specific: Assume that the vector originates from the surface of an object (i.e. sphere, circle, box, line, cylinder, cone). If there are different methods to finding the new direction for each of those objects, then providing help for the sphere one is fine.
EDIT 2: I was going to type this in a comment but it was too much.
So I have orig_vector, which I wish to perturb in some direction between 0 and theta. The theta can be thought of as forming a cone around my vector (with theta being the angle between the center and one side of the cone) and I wish to generate a new vector within that cone. I can generate a point lying on the plane that is tangent to my vector and thus creating a unit vector in the direction of the point, call it rand_vector. At this time, I orig_vector and trand_vector are two unit vectors perpendicular to each other.
I generate my first angle, angle1 between 0 and 2pi and I rotate rand_vector around orig_vector by angle1, forming rand_vector2. I looked up a resource online and it said that the second angle, angle2 should be between 0 and sin(theta) (where theta is the original "cone" angle). Then I rotate rand_vector2 by acos(angle2) around the vector defined by the cross product between rand_vector2 and orig_vector.
When I do this, I don't obtain the desired results. That is, when theta=0, I still get perturbed vectors, and I expect to get orig_vector. If anyone can explain the reason for the angles and why they are the way they are, I would greatly appreciate it.
EDIT 3: This is the final edit, I promise =). So I fixed my bug and everything that I described above works (it was an implementation bug, not a theory bug). However, my question about the angles (i.e. why is angle2 = sin(theta)*rand() and why is perturbed_vector = rand_vector2.Rotate(rand_vector2.Cross(orig_vector), acos(angle2)). Thanks so much!
Here's the algorithm that I've used for this kind of problem before. It was described in Ray Tracing News.
1) Make a third vector perpendicular to the other two to build an orthogonal basis:
cross_vector = unit( cross( orig_vector, rand_vector ) )
2) Pick two uniform random numbers in [0,1]:
s = rand( 0, 1 )
r = rand( 0, 1 )
3) Let h be the cosine of the cone's angle:
h = cos( theta )
4) Modify uniform sampling on a sphere to pick a random vector in the cone around +Z:
phi = 2 * pi * s
z = h + ( 1 - h ) * r
sinT = sqrt( 1 - z * z )
x = cos( phi ) * sinT
y = sin( phi ) * sinT
5) Change of basis to reorient it around the original angle:
perturbed = rand_vector * x + cross_vector * y + orig_vector * z
If you have another vector to represent an axis of rotation, there are libraries that will take the axis and the angle and give you a rotation matrix, which can then be multiplied by your starting vector to get the result you want.
However, the axis of rotation should be at right angles to your starting vector, to get the amount of rotation you expect. If the axis of rotation does not lie in the plane perpendicular to your vector, the result will be somewhat different than theta.
That being said, if you already have a vector at right angles to the one you want to perturb, and you're not picky about the direction of the perturbation, you can just as easily take a linear combination of your starting vector with the perpendicular one, adjust for magnitude as needed.
I.e., if P and Q are vectors having identical magnitude, and are perpendicular, and you want to rotate P in the direction of Q, then the vector R given by R = [Pcos(theta)+Qsin(theta)] will satisfy the constraints you've given. If P and Q have differing magnitude, then there will be some scaling involved.
You may be interested in 3D-coordinate transformations to change your vector angle.
I don't know how many directions you want to change your angle in, but transforming your Cartesian coordinates to spherical coordinates should allow you to make your angle change as you like.
Actually, it is very easy to do that. All you have to do is multiply your vector by the correct rotation matrix. The resulting vector will be your rotated vector. Now, how do you obtain such rotation matrix? That depends on the 3d framework/engine you are using. Any 3d framework must provide functions for obtaining rotation matrices, normally as static methods of the Matrix class.
Good luck.
Like said in other comments you can rotate your vector using a rotation matrix.
The rotation matrix has two angles you rotate your vector around. You can pick them with a random number generator, but just picking two from a flat generator is not correct. To ensure that your rotation vector is generated flat, you have to pick one random angle φ from a flat generator and the other one from a generator flat in cosθ ;this ensures that your solid angle element dcos(θ)dφ is defined correctly (φ and θ defined as usual for spherical coordinates).
Example: picking a random direction with no restriction on range, random() generates flat in [0,1]
angle1 = acos(random())
angle2 = 2*pi*random()
My code in unity - tested and working:
/*
* this is used to perturb given vector 'direction' by changing it by angle not more than 'angle' vector from
* base direction. Used to provide errors for player playing algorithms
*
*/
Vector3 perturbDirection( Vector3 direction, float angle ) {
// division by zero protection
if( Mathf.Approximately( direction.z, 0f )) {
direction.z = 0.0001f;
}
// 1 get some orthogonal vector to direction ( solve direction and orthogonal dot product = 0, assume x = 1, y = 1, then z = as below ))
Vector3 orthogonal = new Vector3( 1f, 1f, - ( direction.x + direction.y ) / direction.z );
// 2 get random vector from circle on flat orthogonal to direction vector. get full range to assume all cone space randomization (-180, 180 )
float orthoAngle = UnityEngine.Random.Range( -180f, 180f );
Quaternion rotateTowardsDirection = Quaternion.AngleAxis( orthoAngle, direction );
Vector3 randomOrtho = rotateTowardsDirection * orthogonal;
// 3 rotate direction towards random orthogonal vector by vector from our available range
float perturbAngle = UnityEngine.Random.Range( 0f, angle ); // range from (0, angle), full cone cover guarantees previous (-180,180) range
Quaternion rotateDirection = Quaternion.AngleAxis( perturbAngle, randomOrtho );
Vector3 perturbedDirection = rotateDirection * direction;
return perturbedDirection;
}