How can I convert coordinates on a circle to coordinates on a square? - math

Question

I'm currently working on a game in LBP2 that has modify the way a controller gives input. This question:
How can I convert coordinates on a square to coordinates on a circle?
Has helped me quite a lot with what I am doing, but I do have one problem. I need the inverse function of the one they give. They go from square -> circle, and I've tried searching all over for how to map a circle to a square.
The function given in the previous question is:
xCircle = xSquare * sqrt(1 - 0.5*ySquare^2)
yCircle = ySquare * sqrt(1 - 0.5*xSquare^2)
From Mapping a Square to a Circle
My question is given xCircle and yCircle... how do I find xSquare and ySquare?
I've tried all of the algebra I know, filled up two pages of notes, tried to get wolfram alpha to get the inverse functions, but this problem is beyond my abilities.
Thank you for taking a look.

Answer 1

x = ½ √( 2 + u² - v² + 2u√2 ) - ½ √( 2 + u² - v² - 2u√2 )
y = ½ √( 2 - u² + v² + 2v√2 ) - ½ √( 2 - u² + v² - 2v√2 )
Note on notation: I'm using x = xSquare , y = ySquare, u = xCircle and v = yCircle;
i.e. (u,v) are circular disc coordinates and (x,y) are square coordinates.
For a C++ implementation of the equations, go to
http://squircular.blogspot.com/2015/09/mapping-circle-to-square.html
See http://squircular.blogspot.com
for more example images.
Also, see http://arxiv.org/abs/1509.06344 for the proof/derivation
This mapping is the inverse of
u = x √( 1 - ½ y² )
v = y √( 1 - ½ x² )
P.S. The mapping is not unique. There are other mappings out there. The picture below illustrates the non-uniqueness of the mapping.

Answer 2

if you have xCircle and yCircle that means that you're on a circle with radius R = sqrt(xCircle^2 + yCircle^2). Now you need to extend that circle to a square with half-side = R,
if (xCircle < yCircle)
ySquare = R, xSquare = xCircle * R/yCircle
else
xSquare = R, ySquare = yCircle * R/xCircle
this is for the first quadrant, for others you need some trivial tweaking with the signs

Answer 3

There are many ways you could do this; here's one simple way.
Imagine a circle of radius R centred on the origin, and a square of side 2R centred on the origin, we want to map all of the points within and on the boundary of the circle (with coordinates (x,y)) to points within and on the boundary of the square. Note that we can also describe points within the circle using polar coordinates (r, ø) (that's supposed to be a phi), where
x = r cos ø,
y = r sin ø
(ie r^2 = x^2 + y^2 and r <= 1). Then imagine other coordinates x' = a(ø) x = a(ø) r cos ø, and y' = a(ø) y (ie, we decide that a won't depend on r).
In order to map the boundary of the circle (r = 1) to the boundary of the square (x' = R), we must have, for ø < 45deg, x' = a(ø) R cos ø = R, so we must have a(ø) = 1/cos ø. Similarly, for 45 < ø < 90 we must have the boundary of the circle map to y' = R, giving a(ø) = 1/sin ø in that region. Continuing round the circle, we see that a(ø) must always be positive, so the final mapping from the circle to the square is
x' = a(ø) x,
y' = a(ø) y
where
ø = |arctan y/x| = arctan |y/x|
and
a(ø) = 1/cos ø, when ø <= 45 deg (ie, when x < y), and
a(ø) = 1/sin ø, when ø > 45 deg.
That immediately gives you the mapping in the other direction. If you have coordinates (x', y') on the square (where x' <= R and y' <= R), then
x = x'/a(ø)
y = y'/a(ø)
with a(ø) as above.
A much simpler mapping, though, is to calculate the (r, ø) for the desired position on the circle, and map that to x' = r and y' = ø. That also maps every point in the circle into a rectangle, and vice versa, and might have better properties, depending on what you want to do.
So that's the real question: what is it you're actually aiming to do here?

Answer 4

I was implementing the solution above but the results are not satisfiying.
The square coordinates are not exact.
Here is a simple counter-example:
Consider the point (x,y)=(0.75, 1) on the square.
We map it to the circle with (u,v)=(0.53, 0.85) on the circle.
Applying the expression above we get the new square coordinates
(x',y')=(u/v,r)=(0.625543242, 1) with r=(u^2+v^2)^(1/2).
This point is close but not the expected precise solution.
I solved a root finding problem in order to get the inverse expression of the mapping from square to circle like above.
you need to solve the system equations like above:
I) u = x*(1-y^2/2)^(1/2)
II) v = y*(1-x^2/2)^(1/2)
One ends up with 8 root points as solution. One of the roots I implemented into Excel-VBA which I present here below and it works very fine.
' given the circle coordinates (u,v) caluclates the x coordinate on the square
Function circ2sqrX(u As Double, v As Double) As Double
Dim r As Double, signX As Double, u2 As Double, v2 As Double, uuvv As Double, temp1 As Double
u2 = u * u
v2 = v * v
r = Sqr(u2 + v2)
signX = 1
If v = 0 Or u = 0 Then
circ2sqrX = u
Exit Function
End If
If u < 0 Then
signX = -1
End If
If Abs(u) = Abs(v) And r = 1 Then
circ2sqrX = signX
Exit Function
End If
uuvv = (u2 - v2) * (u2 - v2) / 4
temp1 = 2 * Sqr(uuvv - u2 - v2 + 1)
circ2sqrX = -((temp1 - u2 + v2 - 2) * Sqr(temp1 + u2 - v2 + 2)) / (4 * u)
End Function
' given the circle coordinates (u,v) caluclates the y coordinate on the square
' make use of symetrie property
Function circ2sqrY(u As Double, v As Double) As Double
circ2sqrY=circ2sqrX(v,u)
End Function