I have a line that I must do calculations on for each grid square the line passes through.
I have used the Superline algorithm to get all these grid squares. This gives me an array of X,Y coordinates to check.
Now, here is where I am stuck, I need to be able to calculate the distance traveled through each of the grid squares... As in, on a line not on either 90 degree or 45 degree angles, each grid square accommodates a different 'length' of the total line.
Image example here, need 10 reputation to post images
As you can see, some squares have much more 'line length' in them than others - this is what I need to find.
How do I work this out for each grid square? I've been at this for a while and request the help of the Stack Overflowers!
There may be some clever way to do this that is faster and easier, but you could always hack through it like this:
You know the distance formula: s=sqrt((x2-x1)^2+(y2-y1)^2). To apply this, you must find the x and y co-ordinates of the points where the line intersects the edges of each grid cell. You can do this by plugging the x and y co-ordinates of the boundaries of the cell into the equation of the line and solve for x or y as appropriate.
That is, each cell extends from some point (x0,y0) to (x0+1,y0+1). So we need to find y(x0), y(x0+1), x(y0), and x(y0+1). For each of these, the x or y value found may or may not be within the ranges for that co-ordinate for that cell. Specifically, two of them will be and two won't. The two that are correspond to the edges that the line passes through, and the two that aren't are edges that it doesn't pass through.
Okay, maybe this sounds pretty confusing, so let's work through an example.
Let's say your line has the equation x=2/3 * y. You want to know where it intersects the edges of the cell extending from (1,0) to (2,1).
Plug in x=1 and you get y=2/3. 2/3 is in the legal range for y -- 0 to 1 -- so (1,2/3) is a point on the edge where the line intersects this cell. Namely, the left edge.
Plug in x=2 and you get y=4/3. 4/3 is outside the range for y. So the line does not pass through the right edge.
Plug in y=0 and you get x=0. 0 is not in the range for x, so the line does not pass through the bottom edge.
Plug in y=1 and you get x=3/2. 3/2 is in the legal range for x, so (3/2,1) is another intersection point, on the top edge.
Thus, the two points where the line intersects the edges of the cell are (1,2/3) and (3/2,1). Plug these into the distance formula and you'll get the length of the line segement through this cell, namely sqrt((1-3/2)^2+(2/3-1)^2)=sqrt(1/4+1/9)=sqrt(13/36). You can approximate that to any desired level of precision.
To do this in a program you'd need something like: (I'll use pseudo code because I don't know what language you're using)
// Assuming y=mx+b
function y(x)
return mx+b
function x(y)
return (y-b)/m
// cellx, celly are co-ordinates of lower left corner of cell
// Upper right must therefore be cellx+1, celly+1
function segLength(cellx, celly)
// We'll create two arrays pointx and pointy to hold co-ordinates of intersect points
// n is index into these arrays
// In an object-oriented language, we'd create an array of point objects, but whatever
n=0
y1=y(cellx)
if y1>=celly and y1<=celly+1
pointx[n]=cellx
pointy[n]=y1
n=n+1
y2=y(cellx+1)
if y2>=celly and y2<=celly+1
pointx[n]=cellx+1
pointy[n]=y2
n=n+1
x1=x(celly)
if x1>=cellx and x1<=cellx+1
pointx[n]=x1
pointy[n]=celly
n=n+1
x2=x(celly+1)
if x2>=cellx and x2<=cellx+1
pointx[n]=x2
pointy[n]=celly+1
n=n+1
if n==0
return "Error: line does not intersect this cell"
else if n==2
return sqrt((pointx[0]-pointx[1])^2+(pointy[0]-pointy[1])^2)
else
return "Error: Impossible condition"
Well, I'm sure you could make the code a little cleaner, but that's the idea.
have a look at Siddon's algorithm: "Fast calculation of the exact radiological path for a three-dimensional CT array"
unfortunately you need a subscription to read the original paper, but it is fairly well described in this paper
Siddon's algorithm is an O(n) algorithm for finding the length of intersection of a line with each pixel/voxel in a regular 2d/3d grid.
Use the Euclidean Distance.
sqrt((x2-x1)^2 + (y2-y1)^2)
This gives the actual distance in units between points (x1,y1) and (x2,y2)
You can fairly simply find this for each square.
You have the slope of the line m = (y2-y1)/(x2-x1).
You have the starting point:
(x1,y2)
What is the y position at x1 + 1? (i.e. starting at the next square)
Assuming you set your starting point to 0 the equation of this line is simply:
y_n = mx_n
so y_n = (y2-y1)/(x2-x1) * x_n
Then the coordinates at the first square are (x1,y1) and at the nth point:
(1, ((y2-y1)/(x2-x1))*1)
(2, ((y2-y1)/(x2-x1))*2)
(3, ((y2-y1)/(x2-x1))*3)
...
(n, ((y2-y1)/(x2-x1))*n)
Then the distance through the nth square is:
sqrt((x_n+1 - x_n)^2 + (y_n+1 - y_n)^2)
Related
So I'm attempting to make a wall system like the Sims. While it is 3D, it can be simplified to 2D (think a bird's eye view). A wall is defined by two points: a starting point an an ending point and the walls themselves have directions and can be simplified to unit vectors. Walls are also made with rectangular prisms, each of these prisms start at one point and end at another. So, bearing this in mind, sometimes walls have to be extended, otherwise there will be a small gap in the convex corner of the wall
if one of the points is shared between the walls. Any number of walls can be placed in a single position, so all of this in mind, a grid point's data could contain something like this (using Lua), each table represents a vector2, using a table for ease of visualization, this code won't actually work:
local gridPoint = {
{x = 1, y = 0},
{x = 0.7071, y = 0.7071},
{x = 0, y = 1},
{x = 0.7071, y = -0.7071},
}
Here's a visual of what the points might look like, where the intersection is the grid point and the walls are the vectors extending from the intersection, assuming each of the vectors have a length of 1 (excuse my terrible drawing skills). Since dot products flip when greater than 180 degrees, the largest angle would always be <=180.
So now, to get the angle between any two of points, we can just do math.deg(math.acos(v1:dot(v2))) to get the angle between these two points in degrees, where v1 is vector 1, v2 is vector 2, and dot is a function that returns the dot product of v1 and v2.
So up to this point, everything is fine. The issue is that I have to create two loops which goes through every single combination of possible dot products which I'm not sure is the best method of finding the largest angle, this is #gridPoint^2 possible combinations which is fine at lower numbers, but this number of possible combination increases exponentially with each new wall.
Is there an easier way of doing this?
This problem is equivalent to finding of the farthest pair of points, where all the points lie at unit circle.
Sort points - it is simpler to separate points with positive y (angles 0..Pi) into the first list, and points with negative y into the second list,sort them by X-coordinate, then join the first list and reversed second one. This stage takes O(nlogn) time
Then perform searching of the farthest points - fix the first point index (A[i]), walk through the list until squared distance A[i]-A[j+1] becomes less than squared distance A[i]-A[j]. So we find the farthest point A[j] for A[i]. Now increment i and search the farthest point for it - starting from j.
Repeat until j exceeds n.
This stage is linear because we move i and j only in forward direction. Essentially this is a method of rotating calipers, so you can get some implementation elsewhere.
I am trying to find circumcenter of Given Three point of Triangle……..
NOTE: all these three points are with X,Y and Z Co-Ordinate Means points are in 3D
I know that the circumcenter is the point where the right bisectors intersect….
But for that I have to find middle point of each side then the right bisectors and then intersection point of that …..this is long and error some process……
Is there not any formula which just takes as input these three points of triangle and giving us the Circumcenter of Triangle ……?
Thanks………
The wiki page on Circumscribed circle has it in terms of dot and cross products of the three vertex vectors. It also has a formula for the radius of the circle, if you are so interested.
First of all, you need to make sure that points are not collinear. i.e. do not lie in the same line. For that you need to find the direction cosines of the lines made by three points, and if they have same direction cosines, halt, you can't get circle out of it.
For direction cosine please check this article on wikipedia.
(A way of finding coordinate-geometry and geometry -- based on the theorem that, a perpendicular line from center of circle bisects a chord)
Find the equation of the plane.
This equation must reduce to the form
and the direction cosines (of the line perpendicular to plane determines the plane), so direction cosines of the line perpendicular to this line is
given by this link equations -- 8,9,10 (except replace it for l, m, n).
Find the equation of the lines (all three) in 3-d
(x-x1)/l=(y-y1)/m=(z-z1)/n (in terms of direction cosines) or
(x-x1)/(x2-x1)=(y-y1)/(y2-y1)=(z-z1)/(z2-z1)
Now we need to find the equation of line
a) this perpendicular to the line, from 2 (let l1, m1, n1 be direction cosines of this line)
b) must be contained in place from 1 (let l2, m2, n2 be direction cosines of this line perpendicular to plane)
Find and solve (at least two lines) from 3, sure you will be able to find the center of the circle.
How to find out equation ??? as we are finding the circum-center, we will get our points (i.e. it is the midpoint of the two points) and for a) we have
l1*l+m1*m+n1*n = 0 and l2*l+m2*m+n2*n = 0 where l, m, n are direction cosines of our, line, now solving this two equation, we can get l, m interms of n. And we use this found out (x1,y1,z1) and the value of l, m, 1 and we will have out equation.
The other process is to solve the equation given in this equation
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/5725871/solving-the-multiple-math-equations
Which is the deadliest way.
The other method is using the advantage of computer(by iteration) - as I call it (but for this you need to know the range of the coordinates and it consumes lot of memory)
it's like this (You can make it more precise by incrementing at 1/10) but certainly bad way.
for(i=minXrange, i>=maxXrange; i++){
for(j=minYrange, j>=maxYrange; j++){
for(i=minZrange, i>=maxZrange; k++){
if(((x1-i)^2 + (y1-j)^2 + (z1-k)^2) == (x2-i)^2 + (y2-j)^2 + (z2-k)^2) == for z)){
return [i, j, k];
}
}
}
}
I am trying to generate a 3d tube along a spline. I have the coördinates of the spline (x1,y1,z1 - x2,y2,z2 - etc) which you can see in the illustration in yellow. At those points I need to generate circles, whose vertices are to be connected at a later stadium. The circles need to be perpendicular to the 'corners' of two line segments of the spline to form a correct tube. Note that the segments are kept low for illustration purpose.
[apparently I'm not allowed to post images so please view the image at this link]
http://img191.imageshack.us/img191/6863/18720019.jpg
I am as far as being able to calculate the vertices of each ring at each point of the spline, but they are all on the same planar ie same angled. I need them to be rotated according to their 'legs' (which A & B are to C for instance).
I've been thinking this over and thought of the following:
two line segments can be seen as 2 vectors (in illustration A & B)
the corner (in illustraton C) is where a ring of vertices need to be calculated
I need to find the planar on which all of the vertices will reside
I then can use this planar (=vector?) to calculate new vectors from the center point, which is C
and find their x,y,z using radius * sin and cos
However, I'm really confused on the math part of this. I read about the dot product but that returns a scalar which I don't know how to apply in this case.
Can someone point me into the right direction?
[edit]
To give a bit more info on the situation:
I need to construct a buffer of floats, which -in groups of 3- describe vertex positions and will be connected by OpenGL ES, given another buffer with indices to form polygons.
To give shape to the tube, I first created an array of floats, which -in groups of 3- describe control points in 3d space.
Then along with a variable for segment density, I pass these control points to a function that uses these control points to create a CatmullRom spline and returns this in the form of another array of floats which -again in groups of 3- describe vertices of the catmull rom spline.
On each of these vertices, I want to create a ring of vertices which also can differ in density (amount of smoothness / vertices per ring).
All former vertices (control points and those that describe the catmull rom spline) are discarded.
Only the vertices that form the tube rings will be passed to OpenGL, which in turn will connect those to form the final tube.
I am as far as being able to create the catmullrom spline, and create rings at the position of its vertices, however, they are all on a planars that are in the same angle, instead of following the splines path.
[/edit]
Thanks!
Suppose you have a parametric curve such as:
xx[t_] := Sin[t];
yy[t_] := Cos[t];
zz[t_] := t;
Which gives:
The tangent vector to our curve is formed by the derivatives in each direction. In our case
Tg[t_]:= {Cos[t], -Sin[t], 1}
The orthogonal plane to that vector comes solving the implicit equation:
Tg[t].{x - xx[t], y - yy[t], z - zz[t]} == 0
In our case this is:
-t + z + Cos[t] (x - Sin[t]) - (y - Cos[t]) Sin[t] == 0
Now we find a circle in that plane, centered at the curve. i.e:
c[{x_, y_, z_, t_}] := (x - xx[t])^2 + (y - yy[t])^2 + (z - zz[t])^2 == r^2
Solving both equations, you get the equation for the circles:
HTH!
Edit
And by drawing a lot of circles, you may get a (not efficient) tube:
Or with a good Graphics 3D library:
Edit
Since you insist :) here is a program to calculate the circle at junctions.
a = {1, 2, 3}; b = {3, 2, 1}; c = {2, 3, 4};
l1 = Line[{a, b}];
l2 = Line[{b, c}];
k = Cross[(b - a), (c - b)] + b; (*Cross Product*)
angle = -ArcCos[(a - b).(c - b)/(Norm[(a - b)] Norm[(c - b)])]/2;
q = RotationMatrix[angle, k - b].(a - b);
circle[t_] := (k - b)/Norm[k - b] Sin#t + (q)/Norm[q] Cos#t + b;
Show[{Graphics3D[{
Red, l1,
Blue, l2,
Black, Line[{b, k}],
Green, Line[{b, q + b}]}, Axes -> True],
ParametricPlot3D[circle[t], {t, 0, 2 Pi}]}]
Edit
Here you have the mesh constructed by this method. It is not pretty, IMHO:
I don't know what your language of choice is, but if you speak MatLab there are already a few implementations available. Even if you are using another language, some of the code might be clear enough to inspire a reimplementation.
The key point is that if you don't want your tube to twist when you connect the vertices, you cannot determine the basis locally, but need to propagate it along the curve. The Frenet frame, as proposed by jalexiou, is one option but simpler stuff works fine as well.
I did a simple MatLab implementation called tubeplot.m in my formative years (based on a simple non-Frenet propagation), and googling it, I can see that Anders Sandberg from kth.se has done a (re?)implementation with the same name, available at http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/Ray/Tubeplot/tubeplot.html.
Edit:
The following is pseudocode for the simple implementation in tubeplot.m. I have found it to be quite robust.
The plan is to propagate two normals a and b along the curve, so
that at each point on the curve a, b and the tangent to the curve
will form an orthogonal basis which is "as close as possible" to the
basis used in the previous point.
Using this basis we can find points on the circumference of the tube.
// *** Input/output ***
// v[0]..v[N-1]: Points on your curve as vectors
// No neighbours should overlap
// nvert: Number of vertices around tube, integer.
// rtube: Radius of tube, float.
// xyz: (N, nvert)-array with vertices of the tube as vectors
// *** Initialization ***
// 1: Tangent vectors
for i=1 to N-2:
dv[i]=v[i+1]-v[i-1]
dv[0]=v[1]-v[0], dv[N-1]=v[N-1]-v[N-2]
// 2: An initial value for a (must not be pararllel to dv[0]):
idx=<index of smallest component of abs(dv[0])>
a=[0,0,0], a[idx]=1.0
// *** Loop ***
for i = 0 to N-1:
b=normalize(cross(a,dv[i]));
a=normalize(cross(dv[i],b));
for j = 0 to nvert-1:
th=j*2*pi/nvert
xyz[i,j]=v[i] + cos(th)*rtube*a + sin(th)*rtube*b
Implementation details: You can probably speed up things by precalculating the cos and sin. Also, to get a robust performance, you should fuse input points closer than, say, 0.1*rtube, or a least test that all the dv vectors are non-zero.
HTH
You need to look at Fenet formulas in Differential Geometry. See figure 2.1 for an example with a helix.
Surfaces & Curves
Taking the cross product of the line segment and the up vector will give you a vector at right-angles to them both (unless the line segment points exactly up or down) which I'll call horizontal. Taking the cross product of horizontal and the line segment with give you another vector that's at right angles to the line segment and the other one (let's call it vertical). You can then get the circle coords by lineStart + cos theta * horizontal + sin theta * vertical for theta in 0 - 2Pi.
Edit: To get the points for the mid-point between two segments, use the sum of the two line segment vectors to find the average.
I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask, but here goes...
Short version: I'm trying to compute the orientation of a triangle on a plane, formed by the intersection of 3 edges, without explicitly computing the intersection points.
Long version: I need to triangulate a PSLG on a triangle in 3D. The vertices of the PSLG are defined by the intersections of line segments with the plane through the triangle, and are guaranteed to lie within the triangle. Assuming I had the intersection points, I could project to 2D and use a point-line-side (or triangle signed area) test to determine the orientation of a triangle between any 3 intersection points.
The problem is I can't explicitly compute the intersection points because of the floating-point error that accumulates when I find the line-plane intersection. To figure out if the line segments strike the triangle in the first place, I'm using some freely available robust geometric predicates, which give the sign of the volume of a tetrahedron, or equivalently which side of a plane a point lies on. I can determine if the line segment endpoints are on opposite sides of the plane through the triangle, then form tetrahedra between the line segment and each edge of the triangle to determine whether the intersection point lies within the triangle.
Since I can't explicitly compute the intersection points, I'm wondering if there is a way to express the same 2D orient calculation in 3D using only the original points. If there are 3 edges striking the triangle that gives me 9 points in total to play with. Assuming what I'm asking is even possible (using only the 3D orient tests), then I'm guessing that I'll need to form some subset of all the possible tetrahedra between those 9 points. I'm having difficultly even visualizing this, let alone distilling it into a formula or code. I can't even google this because I don't know what the industry standard terminology might be for this type of problem.
Any ideas how to proceed with this? Thanks. Perhaps I should ask MathOverflow as well...
EDIT: After reading some of the comments, one thing that occurs to me... Perhaps if I could fit non-overlapping tetrahedra between the 3 line segments, then the orientation of any one of those that crossed the plane would be the answer I'm looking for. Other than when the edges enclose a simple triangular prism, I'm not sure this sub-problem is solvable either.
EDIT: The requested image.
I am answering this on both MO & SO, expanding the comments I made on MO.
My sense is that no computational trick with signed tetrahedra volumes will avoid the precision issues that are your main concern. This is because, if you have tightly twisted segments, the orientation of the triangle depends on the precise positioning of the cutting plane.
[image removed; see below]
In the above example, the upper plane crosses the segments in the order (a,b,c) [ccw from above]: (red,blue,green), while the lower plane crosses in the reverse order (c,b,a): (green,blue,red). The height
of the cutting plane could be determined by your last bit of precision.
Consequently, I think it makes sense to just go ahead and compute the points of intersection in
the cutting plane, using enough precision to make the computation exact. If your segment endpoints coordinates and plane coefficients have L bits of precision, then there is just a small constant-factor increase needed. Although I am not certain of precisely what that factor is, it is small--perhaps 4. You will not need e.g., L2 bits, because the computation is solving linear equations.
So there will not be an explosion in the precision required to compute this exactly.
Good luck!
(I was prevented from posting the clarifying image because I don't have the reputation. See
the MO answer instead.)
Edit: Do see the MO answer, but here's the image:
I would write symbolic vector equations, you know, with dot and cross products, to find the normal of the intersection triangle. Then, the sign of the dot product of this normal with the initial triangle one gives the orientation. So finally you can express this in a form sign(F(p1,...,p9)), where p1 to p9 are your points and F() is an ugly formula including dot and cross products of differences (pi-pj). Don't know if this can be done simpler, but this general approach does the job.
As I understand it, you have three lines intersecting the plane, and you want to calculate the orientation of the triangle formed by the intersection points, without calculating the intersection points themselves?
If so: you have a plane
N·(x - x0) = 0
and six points...
l1a, l1b, l2a, l2b, l3a, l3b
...forming three lines
l1 = l1a + t(l1b - l1a)
l2 = l2a + u(l2b - l2a)
l3 = l3a + v(l3b - l3a)
The intersection points of these lines to the plane occur at specific values of t, u, v, which I'll call ti, ui, vi
N·(l1a + ti(l1b - l1a) - x0) = 0
N·(x0 - l1a)
ti = ----------------
N·(l1b - l1a)
(similarly for ui, vi)
Then the specific points of intersection are
intersect1 = l1a + ti(l1b - l1a)
intersect2 = l2a + ui(l2b - l2a)
intersect3 = l3a + vi(l3b - l3a)
Finally, the orientation of your triangle is
orientation = direction of (intersect2 - intersect1)x(intersect3 - intersect1)
(x is cross-product) Work backwards plugging the values, and you'll have an equation for orientation based only on N, x0, and your six points.
Let's call your triangle vertices T[0], T[1], T[2], and the first line segment's endpoints are L[0] and L[1], the second is L[2] and L[3], and the third is L[4] and L[5]. I imagine you want a function
int Orient(Pt3 T[3], Pt3 L[6]); // index L by L[2*i+j], i=0..2, j=0..1
which returns 1 if the intersections have the same orientation as the triangle, and -1 otherwise.
The result should be symmetric under interchange of j values, antisymmetric under interchange of i values and T indices. As long as you can compute a quantity with these symmetries, that's all you need.
Let's try
Sign(Product( Orient3D(T[i],T[i+1],L[2*i+0],L[2*i+1]) * -Orient3D(T[i],T[i+1],L[2*i+1],L[2*i+0]) ), i=0..2))
where the product should be taken over cyclic permutations of the indices (modulo 3). I believe this has all the symmetry properties required. Orient3D is Shewchuk's 4-point plane orientation test, which I assume you're using.
Given a list of vertices (v), and a list of edges connecting the vertices (e), and a list of surfaces that connect the edges (s), how to calculate the volume of the Polyhedron?
Take the polygons and break them into triangles.
Consider the tetrahedron formed by each triangle and an arbitrary point (the origin).
Sum the signed volumes of these tetrahedra.
Notes:
This will only work if you can keep a consistent CW or CCW order to the triangles as viewed from the outside.
The signed volume of the tetrahedron is equal to 1/6 the determinant of the following matrix:
[ x1 x2 x3 x4 ]
[ y1 y2 y3 y4 ]
[ z1 z2 z3 z4 ]
[ 1 1 1 1 ]
where the columns are the homogeneous coordinates of the verticies (x,y,z,1).
It works even if the shape does not enclose the origin by subracting off that volume as well as adding it in, but that depends on having a consistent ordering.
If you can't preserve the order you can still find some way to break it into tetrahedrons and sum 1/6 absolute value of the determinant of each one.
Edit:
I'd like to add that for triangle mesh where one vertex (say V4) of the tetrahedron is (0,0,0) the determinante of the 4x4 matrix can be simplified to the upper left 3x3 (expansion along the 0,0,0,1 column) and that can be simplified to Vol = V1xV2.V3 where "x" is cross product and "." is dot product. So compute that expression for every triangle, sum those volumes and divide by 6.
Similarly with a polygon where we can split it into triangles and sum the areas,
you could split a polyhedron into pyramids and sum their volumes. But I'm not sure how hard is to implement an algorithm for that.
(I believe there is a mathematical way/formula, like using vectors and matrices.
I suggest to post your question also on http://mathoverflow.net)
I have done this before, but the surface mesh I used always had triangular facets. If your mesh has non triangular facets, you can easily break them up into triangular facets first. Then I fed it to TetGen to obtain a tetrahedralization of the interior. Finally, I added up all the volumes of the tetrahedra. TetGen is reasonably easy to use, and is the only library other than CGAL I know of that can handle complicated meshes. CGAL is pretty easy to use if you don't mind installing a gigantic library and use templates like crazy.
First, break every face into triangles by drawing in new edges.
Now look at one triangle, and suppose it's on the "upper" surface (some of these details will turn out to be unimportant later). Look at the volume below the triangle, down to some horizontal plane below the polyhedron. If {h1, h2, h3} are the heights of the three points, and A is the area of the base, then the volume of the solid will be A(h1+h2+h3)/3. Now we have to add up the volumes of these solids for the upper faces, and subtract them for the lower faces to get the volume of the polyhedron.
Play with the algebra and you'll see that the height of the polyhedron above the horizontal plane doesn't matter. The plane can be above the polyhedron, or pass through it, and the result will still be correct.
So what we need is (1) a way to calculate the area of the base, and (2) a way to tell an "upper" face from a "lower" one. The first is easy if you have the Cartesian coordinates of the points, the second is easy if the points are ordered, and you can combine them and kill two birds with one stone. Suppose for each face you have a list of its corners, in counter-clockwise order. Then the projection of those points on the x-y plane will be counterclockwise for an upper face and clockwise for a lower one. If you use this method to calculate the area of the base, it will come up positive for an upper face and negative for a lower one, so you can add them all together and have the answer.
So how do you get the ordered lists of corners? Start with one triangle, pick an ordering, and for each edge the neighbor that shares that edge should list those two points in the opposite order. Move from neighbor to neighbor until you have a list for every triangle. If the volume of the polyhedron comes up negative, just multiply by -1 (it means you chose the wrong ordering for that first triangle, and the polyhedron was inside-out).
EDIT:
I forgot the best part! If you check the algebra for adding up these volumes, you'll see that a lot of terms cancel out, especially when combining triangles back into the original faces. I haven't worked this out in detail, but it looks as if the final result could be a surprisingly simple function.
Here's a potential implementation for that in Python.
Can anyone please check if it's correct?
I believe that I am missing permutations of the points because my second test (cube) gives 0.666 and not 1. Ideas anyone?
Cheers
EL
class Simplex(object):
'''
Simplex
'''
def __init__(self,coordinates):
'''
Constructor
'''
if not len(coordinates) == 4:
raise RuntimeError('You must provide only 4 coordinates!')
self.coordinates = coordinates
def volume(self):
'''
volume: Return volume of simplex. Formula from http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetraeder
'''
import numpy
vA = numpy.array(self.coordinates[1]) - numpy.array(self.coordinates[0])
vB = numpy.array(self.coordinates[2]) - numpy.array(self.coordinates[0])
vC = numpy.array(self.coordinates[3]) - numpy.array(self.coordinates[0])
return numpy.abs(numpy.dot(numpy.cross(vA,vB),vC)) / 6.0
class Polyeder(object):
def __init__(self,coordinates):
'''
Constructor
'''
if len(coordinates) < 4:
raise RuntimeError('You must provide at least 4 coordinates!')
self.coordinates = coordinates
def volume(self):
pivotCoordinate = self.coordinates[0]
volumeSum = 0
for i in xrange(1,len(self.coordinates)-3):
newCoordinates = [pivotCoordinate]
for j in xrange(i,i+3):
newCoordinates.append(self.coordinates[j])
simplex = Simplex(newCoordinates)
volumeSum += simplex.volume()
return volumeSum
coords = []
coords.append([0,0,0])
coords.append([1,0,0])
coords.append([0,1,0])
coords.append([0,0,1])
s = Simplex(coords)
print s.volume()
coords.append([0,1,1])
coords.append([1,0,1])
coords.append([1,1,0])
coords.append([1,1,1])
p = Polyeder(coords)
print p.volume()