mapping polar angle to 0..1 - math

Given a cartesian position, how can you map the angle from the origin into the range 0 .. 1?
I have tried:
sweep = atan(pos.y,pos.x) + PI) / (2.*PI);
(where sweep should be between 0 and 1)
This is GLSL, so the atan function is happy with two parameters (y then x) and returns -PI ... PI
This gives 1 in the top-left quadrant, a nice gradient in the top-right going round to the bottom right quadrant and then 0 in the bottom left quadrant:
How do I get a nice single gradient sweep instead? I want the maximum sweep somewhere, and the minimum adjacent to it anti-clockwise.
Here's my GLSL shader code:
Vertex shader:
uniform mat4 MVP_MATRIX;
attribute vec2 VERTEX;
varying vec2 pos;
void main() {
gl_Position = MVP_MATRIX * vec4(VERTEX,-2,1.);
pos = gl_Position.xy;
}
Fragment shader:
uniform vec4 COLOUR;
varying vec2 pos;
void main() {
float PI = 3.14159265358979323846264;
float sweep = (atan(pos.y,pos.x) + PI) / (2.*PI);
gl_FragColor = vec4(COLOUR.rgb * sweep,COLOUR.a);
}

Most programming languages have a two-parameter version of atan, often called atan2 This will usually give a result in the range (-PI, PI]. To convert that to the values 0-1 you can use:
(atan2(y,x) + PI) / (2*PI)
Since your language's atan function takes two arguments, it probably does the same thing as atan2.

You appear to be using atan2, which returns an angle in (-pi, pi). Make it into:
atan2(pos.y,pos.x) + PI) / (2*PI)

Related

Calculating a 3D point infront of a position and rotation

I'm currently working on a game project and need to render a point in front of the current players vision, the game is written in a custom c++ engine. I have the current position (x,y,z) and the current rotation (pitch,yaw,roll). I need to extend the point forward along the known angle at a set distance.
edit:
What I Used As A Solution (Its slightly off but that's ok for me)
Vec3 LocalPos = {0,0,0};
Vec3 CurrentLocalAngle = {0,0,0};
float len = 0.1f;
float pitch = CurrentLocalAngle.x * (M_PI / 180);
float yaw = CurrentLocalAngle.y * (M_PI / 180);
float sp = sinf(pitch);
float cp = cosf(pitch);
float sy = sinf(yaw);
float cy = cosf(yaw);
Vec3 dir = { cp * cy, cp * sy, -sp };
LocalPos = { LocalPos.x + dir.x * len, LocalPos.y + dir.y * len,LocalPos.z + dir.z * len };
You can get the forward vector of the player from matrix column 3 if it is column based, then you multiply its normal by the distance you want then add the result to the player position you will get the point you need.
Convert the angle to a directional vector or just get the "forward vector" from the player if it's available in the engine you're using (it should be the same thing).
Directional vectors are normalized by nature (they have distance = 1), so you can just multiply them by the desired distance to get the desired offset. Multiply this vector by the distance you want the point to be relative to the reference point (the player's camera vector I presume), and then you just add one to the other to get the point in the world where this point belongs.

Turn rate on a player's rotation doing a 360 once it hits pi

Making a game using Golang since it seems to work quite well for games. I made the player face the mouse always, but wanted a turn rate to make certain characters turn slower than others. Here is how it calculates the turn circle:
func (p *player) handleTurn(win pixelgl.Window, dt float64) {
mouseRad := math.Atan2(p.pos.Y-win.MousePosition().Y, win.MousePosition().X-p.pos.X) // the angle the player needs to turn to face the mouse
if mouseRad > p.rotateRad-(p.turnSpeed*dt) {
p.rotateRad += p.turnSpeed * dt
} else if mouseRad < p.rotateRad+(p.turnSpeed*dt) {
p.rotateRad -= p.turnSpeed * dt
}
}
The mouseRad being the radians for the turn to face the mouse, and I'm just adding the turn rate [in this case, 2].
What's happening is when the mouse reaches the left side and crosses the center y axis, the radian angle goes from -pi to pi or vice-versa. This causes the player to do a full 360.
What is a proper way to fix this? I've tried making the angle an absolute value and it only made it occur at pi and 0 [left and right side of the square at the center y axis].
I have attached a gif of the problem to give better visualization.
Basic summarization:
Player slowly rotates to follow mouse, but when the angle reaches pi, it changes polarity which causes the player to do a 360 [counts all the back to the opposite polarity angle].
Edit:
dt is delta time, just for proper frame-decoupled changes in movement obviously
p.rotateRad starts at 0 and is a float64.
Github repo temporarily: here
You need this library to build it! [go get it]
Note beforehand: I downloaded your example repo and applied my change on it, and it worked flawlessly. Here's a recording of it:
(for reference, GIF recorded with byzanz)
An easy and simple solution would be to not compare the angles (mouseRad and the changed p.rotateRad), but rather calculate and "normalize" the difference so it's in the range of -Pi..Pi. And then you can decide which way to turn based on the sign of the difference (negative or positive).
"Normalizing" an angle can be achieved by adding / subtracting 2*Pi until it falls in the -Pi..Pi range. Adding / subtracting 2*Pi won't change the angle, as 2*Pi is exactly a full circle.
This is a simple normalizer function:
func normalize(x float64) float64 {
for ; x < -math.Pi; x += 2 * math.Pi {
}
for ; x > math.Pi; x -= 2 * math.Pi {
}
return x
}
And use it in your handleTurn() like this:
func (p *player) handleTurn(win pixelglWindow, dt float64) {
// the angle the player needs to turn to face the mouse:
mouseRad := math.Atan2(p.pos.Y-win.MousePosition().Y,
win.MousePosition().X-p.pos.X)
if normalize(mouseRad-p.rotateRad-(p.turnSpeed*dt)) > 0 {
p.rotateRad += p.turnSpeed * dt
} else if normalize(mouseRad-p.rotateRad+(p.turnSpeed*dt)) < 0 {
p.rotateRad -= p.turnSpeed * dt
}
}
You can play with it in this working Go Playground demo.
Note that if you store your angles normalized (being in the range -Pi..Pi), the loops in the normalize() function will have at most 1 iteration, so that's gonna be really fast. Obviously you don't want to store angles like 100*Pi + 0.1 as that is identical to 0.1. normalize() would produce correct result with both of these input angles, while the loops in case of the former would have 50 iterations, in the case of the latter would have 0 iterations.
Also note that normalize() could be optimized for "big" angles by using floating operations analogue to integer division and remainder, but if you stick to normalized or "small" angles, this version is actually faster.
Preface: this answer assumes some knowledge of linear algebra, trigonometry, and rotations/transformations.
Your problem stems from the usage of rotation angles. Due to the discontinuous nature of the inverse trigonometric functions, it is quite difficult (if not outright impossible) to eliminate "jumps" in the value of the functions for relatively close inputs. Specifically, when x < 0, atan2(+0, x) = +pi (where +0 is a positive number very close to zero), but atan2(-0, x) = -pi. This is exactly why you experience the difference of 2 * pi which causes your problem.
Because of this, it is often better to work directly with vectors, rotation matrices and/or quaternions. They use angles as arguments to trigonometric functions, which are continuous and eliminate any discontinuities. In our case, spherical linear interpolation (slerp) should do the trick.
Since your code measures the angle formed by the relative position of the mouse to the absolute rotation of the object, our goal boils down to rotating the object such that the local axis (1, 0) (= (cos rotateRad, sin rotateRad) in world space) points towards the mouse. In effect, we have to rotate the object such that (cos p.rotateRad, sin p.rotateRad) equals (win.MousePosition().Y - p.pos.Y, win.MousePosition().X - p.pos.X).normalized.
How does slerp come into play here? Considering the above statement, we simply have to slerp geometrically from (cos p.rotateRad, sin p.rotateRad) (represented by current) to (win.MousePosition().Y - p.pos.Y, win.MousePosition().X - p.pos.X).normalized (represented by target) by an appropriate parameter which will be determined by the rotation speed.
Now that we have laid out the groundwork, we can move on to actually calculating the new rotation. According to the slerp formula,
slerp(p0, p1; t) = p0 * sin(A * (1-t)) / sin A + p1 * sin (A * t) / sin A
Where A is the angle between unit vectors p0 and p1, or cos A = dot(p0, p1).
In our case, p0 == current and p1 == target. The only thing that remains is the calculation of the parameter t, which can also be considered as the fraction of the angle to slerp through. Since we know that we are going to rotate by an angle p.turnSpeed * dt at every time step, t = p.turnSpeed * dt / A. After substituting the value of t, our slerp formula becomes
p0 * sin(A - p.turnSpeed * dt) / sin A + p1 * sin (p.turnSpeed * dt) / sin A
To avoid having to calculate A using acos, we can use the compound angle formula for sin to simplify this further. Note that the result of the slerp operation is stored in result.
result = p0 * (cos(p.turnSpeed * dt) - sin(p.turnSpeed * dt) * cos A / sin A) + p1 * sin(p.turnSpeed * dt) / sin A
We now have everything we need to calculate result. As noted before, cos A = dot(p0, p1). Similarly, sin A = abs(cross(p0, p1)), where cross(a, b) = a.X * b.Y - a.Y * b.X.
Now comes the problem of actually finding the rotation from result. Note that result = (cos newRotation, sin newRotation). There are two possibilities:
Directly calculate rotateRad by p.rotateRad = atan2(result.Y, result.X), or
If you have access to the 2D rotation matrix, simply replace the rotation matrix with the matrix
|result.X -result.Y|
|result.Y result.X|

get angle between two 3d points

I made a get_angle function inside my Vector3 class but I have a problem with it.
The Y angle is perfectly fine.
The pitch angle (X) it returns is slightly over my destination position when the base vector is over it (and when under the opposite is happening).
The amount of it being wrong is dependant on the height difference.
Angle get_angle(const Vector3f& v) const {
return Angle(
math::rad_to_deg(atan2(get_distance(v), v.z - z)) - 90.0f,
math::rad_to_deg(atan2(v.y - y, v.x - x)),
0.0f);
}
It's probably my maths that are bad here.
I found a solution to my problem:
Angle get_angle(const Vector3f& v) const {
return Angle(
math::rad_to_deg(
atan2(
sqrt(pow(X - v.X, 2) + pow(Y - v.Y, 2)), // the problem was here,
// the distance between the vectors should not include the Z position distance in it
v.Z - Z)) - 90.0f,
math::rad_to_deg(atan2(v.Y - Y, v.X - X)), // this worked correctly
0.0f // roll angle should always be 0.0f
);
}
What exactly are you trying to calculate? What does your "Angle" class represent?
I guess you either want to:
Calculate the angle between the two vectors, i.e. a single scalar value. The formula can be found here as cos(theta) == dot(*this, v) / (norm() * v.norm()).
https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/974178/how-to-calculate-the-angle-between-2-vectors-in-3d-space-given-a-preset-function
Or, convert both vectors to spherical coordinates (phi, theta), and calculate a delta for each phi and theta, i.e. you calculate two angles. The conversion formula from cartesian to spherical coordinates can be found here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spherical_coordinate_system#Cartesian_coordinates

OpenGL Math - Projecting Screen space to World space coords

Time for a little bit of math for the end of the day..
I need to project 4 points of the window size:
<0,0> <1024,768>
Into a world space coordinates so it will form a quadrilateral shape that will later be used for terrain culling - without GluUnproject
For test only, I use mouse coordinates - and try to project them onto the world coords
RESOLVED
Here's how to do it exactly, step by step.
Obtain your mouse coordinates within the client area
Get your Projection matrix and View matrix if no Model matrix required.
Multiply Projection * View
Inverse the results of multiplication
Construct a vector4 consisting of
x = mouseposition.x within a range of window x
transform to values between -1 and 1
y = mouseposition.y within a range of window y
transform to values between -1 and 1
remember to invert mouseposition.y if needed
z = the depth value ( this can be obtained with glReadPixel)
you can manually go from -1 to 1 ( zNear, zFar )
w = 1.0
Multiply the vector by inversed matrix created before
Divide result vector by it's w component after matrix multiplication ( perspective division )
POINT mousePos;
GetCursorPos(&mousePos);
ScreenToClient( this->GetWindowHWND(), &mousePos );
CMatrix4x4 matProjection = m_pCamera->getViewMatrix() * m_pCamera->getProjectionMatrix() ;
CMatrix4x4 matInverse = matProjection.inverse();
float in[4];
float winZ = 1.0;
in[0]=(2.0f*((float)(mousePos.x-0)/(this->GetResolution().x-0)))-1.0f,
in[1]=1.0f-(2.0f*((float)(mousePos.y-0)/(this->GetResolution().y-0)));
in[2]=2.0* winZ -1.0;
in[3]=1.0;
CVector4 vIn = CVector4(in[0],in[1],in[2],in[3]);
pos = vIn * matInverse;
pos.w = 1.0 / pos.w;
pos.x *= pos.w;
pos.y *= pos.w;
pos.z *= pos.w;
sprintf(strTitle,"%f %f %f / %f,%f,%f ",m_pCamera->m_vPosition.x,m_pCamera->m_vPosition.y,m_pCamera->m_vPosition.z,pos.x,pos.y,pos.z);
SetWindowText(this->GetWindowHWND(),strTitle);
I had to make some adjustments to the answers provided here. But here's the code I ended up with (Note I'm using GLM, that could affect multiplication order). nearResult is the projected point on the near plane and farResult is the projected point on the far plane. I want to perform a ray cast to see what my mouse is hovering over so I convert them to a direction vector which will then originate from my camera's position.
vec3 getRayFromScreenSpace(const vec2 & pos)
{
mat4 invMat= inverse(m_glData.getPerspective()*m_glData.getView());
vec4 near = vec4((pos.x - Constants::m_halfScreenWidth) / Constants::m_halfScreenWidth, -1*(pos.y - Constants::m_halfScreenHeight) / Constants::m_halfScreenHeight, -1, 1.0);
vec4 far = vec4((pos.x - Constants::m_halfScreenWidth) / Constants::m_halfScreenWidth, -1*(pos.y - Constants::m_halfScreenHeight) / Constants::m_halfScreenHeight, 1, 1.0);
vec4 nearResult = invMat*near;
vec4 farResult = invMat*far;
nearResult /= nearResult.w;
farResult /= farResult.w;
vec3 dir = vec3(farResult - nearResult );
return normalize(dir);
}
Multiply all your matrices. Then invert the result. Point after projection are always in the -1,1. So the four corner screen points are -1,-1; -1,1; 1,-1;1,1. But you still need to choose th z value. If you are in OpenGL, z is between -1 and 1. For directx, the range is 0 to 1. Finally take your points and transform them with the matrix
If you have access to the glu libraries, use gluUnProject(winX, winY, winZ, model, projection, viewport, &objX, &objY, &objZ);
winX and winY will be the corners of your screen in pixels. winZ is a number in [0,1] which will specify where between zNear and zFar (clipping planes) the points should fall. objX-Z will hold the results. The middle variables are the relevant matrices. They can be queried if needed.

Calculate Angle from Two Points and a Direction Vector

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)));

Resources