Flex 4, rotation transition, use shortest route? - apache-flex

I have this object in Flex 4
<s:Group
id="shanks"
width="243"
height="243"
x="243"
y="243"
rotation.Classic="0"
rotation.Centro="72"
rotation.Lace="144"
rotation.Lido="216"
rotation.Euro="288"
clipAndEnableScrolling="false">
<mx:Image source="{circleUnder}" x="-243" y="-243"/>
</s:Group>
It is a circle divided into 5 equal parts each 72 degrees. So each state you can see is increases the rotation by 72 degrees.
I have a transition for the rotation when the state changes like so:
<s:transitions>
<s:Transition>
<mx:AnimateProperty target="{shanks}" property="rotation"/>
</s:Transition>
</s:transitions>
Being that this is a circle you can actually rotate CW or CCW to get to the right degree for the state. Usually the rotation-transition uses whichever is lower. For example to get from Classic to Centro (0 to 72) it goes CW. But this is not always the case. To go from Lace to Lido (144 to 216) it goes CCW. This is not desired sense it would make a much better transition to go CW because it requires less spinning of the circle to get to the desired degree.
What I want is for the circle to spin in the direction which requires the least amount of rotation to reach its destination degree.
I hope this makes sense. Is there a way to set the transition to do that?

I don't think you should use mx:AnimateProperty. Try the new spark Rotation class in your transition. You will also probably want to set autoTransformCenter to true which tells the overall transform effect that the operation will happen about the center of the object.

Related

How to find the sides of a rectangle if you know the sides of a quadrilateral inside the rectangle?

I'm working on an application that uses a accelerometer to measure the sides of a room, I know it will not be exact measurements but it's fine.
In reality I would like the program to be able to calculate the sides of any room shape not only rectangles and squares (and more than 4 corners), but I'm starting with something more simple (rectangle shaped rooms).
My problem is not with the accelerometer but more with the math aspect of the code. Because I measured the room by placing the phone on a wall and then going to the connected wall, I will get the measurements of a quadrilateral inside the rectangle. From there, if it's possible, I will get the measurements of the sides of the rectangle, but I don't really know how.
What I've tried so far:
Divided the quadrilateral inside the rectangle in half, to make 2 triangles. Then I calculated the diagonal using the Pythagoras theorem. Then I used the law of Cosines to calculate one of the angles, and did the same again to find another. Then found the 3rd angle using the 2 other angles (c=a+b-180). I did this for both triangles.
I don't know if this is the right approach and if I have missed something simple, or if I simply don't have enough information to solve for the sides of the rectangle. I have looked into some geometry and trigonometry math online and haven't find anything that gives me a solution. But like I said, maybe I missed something simple.
Any push in the right direction would be helpful.
The rectangle and the quadrilateral
The problem lacks a unique solution. Imagine placing a pair of calipers around the quadrilateral. You'll be able to rotate the calipers around it, and at each angle the calipers will be able to close to a different width. Each of those widths is a different possible room dimension.
You'll also never get an accurate position measurement using the inertial sensors in a phone to begin with. The accels and gyros aren't even close to accurate enough. GPS is, but only outdoors away from structures that cause multipathing artifacts. Quick and sloppy with a tape measure will win every time.

Centering Perspective Camera on two objects by panning

In Unity, I have a perspective camera, and I've got two transforms in my scene that I want the camera to perfectly center on screen. The camera will pan left/right/up/down to the appropriate location.
So far my approach has been to convert the transform positions to screen positions using Camera.WorldToScreenPoint, and taking their average to find the screen midpoint. From there, I know I want to pan the camera a certain number of units toward that midpoint. What I'm having trouble with is figuring out the formula for deciding how much to pan (or, maybe this isn't even the preferred way to determine this).
I think your approach is great. Let me expand the idea.
So this is your screen :D. Blue circle is where you want your objects to be. There are two scenarios. We will use green dots as an example of zooming scenario. Then red dots for panning scenario.
The trick is, you want to keep the dots as close as possible to circumference of blue circle.
Let's say you get red dots as your objects' screen position. You have to shift them towards the center. Let's calculate CenterOfDots. Then calculate it's difference to CenterOfBlueCircle. That's how much pan you need in screen coordinates.
So you have calculated the pan. Now you want to know how much you need to zoom. Let's say you get green dots this time. Calculate DistanceBetweenDots and compare it to DiameterOfBlueCircle. You want them to be the same. So their difference is how much zoom you need in screen coordinates.
There comes the tricky part. Now you know how much to pan and zoom in screen space. But you need to move the camera in world space. Trying to solve it using geometry magic is fine. But I hate headache :D
So instead, I would iteratively shift my camera using the data I calculated above. Just shift the camera in it's local x-y axes towards HowMuchPan, multiplied by a manually given coefficient PanSpeed. This will give a smooth transition to the camera. Same is for the zoom. This time you shift the camera in it's local z axis using HowMuchZoom multiplied by your manually given coefficient ZoomSpeed.
Hope it helps. Have fun :)
i figured out the mathy approach!
for panning, you want to figure out the average screen position of your objects (i.e. the middle). then you want to generate a couple world points against an arbitrary plane some distance away from the camera. the difference between these points is how much to pan the camera
center=Camera.ScreenToWorldPoint(Screen.width*0.5f, Screen.height*0.5f, 10f)
mid=Camera.ScreenToWorldPoint(averageScreenPoint.x, averageScreenPoint.y, 10f)
Camera.transform.Translate(mid-center)
zooming is a bit more complicated, but very similar to the panning approach. you want to use Camera.ScreenToWorldPoint against an arbitrary plane, but you want to do this for 4 points, which will help you figure out a scale to apply to your camera's z position. psuedocode -
screenMin = Camera.ScreenToWorldPoint(0f,0f,10f);
screenMax = Camera.ScreenToWorldPoint(Screen.width,Screen.height,10f);
objMin = Camera.ScreenToWorldPoint(screenPosMin.x, screenPosMin.y, 10f);
objMax = Camera.ScreenToWorldPoint(screenPosMax.x, screenPosMax.y, 10f);
screenDiff = screenMax-screenMin;
objDiff = objMax-objMin;
Vector3 scale = new Vector3(objDiff.x/screenDiff.x, objDiff.y/screenDiff.y, 0f);
ratio = scale.x < scale.y ? scale.y : scale.x;// pick the one that best puts fits on screen.
Camera.localPosition.z = Mathf.Min(ZoomMin, Camera.localPosition.z*ratio);

Rotating a vector in libgdx box2d, firing a cannon ball from a cannon

I have a cannon that fires a cannonball and smoke particle effect, i want the cannon ball to start at the end of the cannon, this i can do by adding the width of the cannon to its x position and adding the half the height to the cannon. This works fine when the cannon is unrotated but when i rotate the cannon its not in the correct position. This is what i use to try and rotate the vector.
Vector2 rotPos = cannon.position.tmp().add(cannon.bounds.width, cannon.bounds.height/2).rotate(cannon.angle);
How can i get a rotated vector that fires the cannon ball in the correct place. See image below.
UPDATE
I tried the below also, same result the ball is off to the left
Vector2 rotPos = world.CannonBody.getWorldVector( world.CannonBody.getPosition() );
The way that you've described the problem, you've solved it for only a single case. This really is just a math problem. Think about the direction you want to shoot, the barrel of the cannon, as the coordinates on a circle.
Since you know the angle, this is easy. Draw a circle with a dot in the center. Then draw a line from the center to the right edge. Then draw another line at a 45 degree angle up from the first line. Connect the two points on the edges with a straight line. You have a triangle now.
Lets call the 45 degree angle line 'r'. And we'll call the first line x, and the last line y.
You should have something that looks like this:
http://i.stack.imgur.com/MJNWZ.jpg
We know that sin(angleInRadians) = y/r. Doing a little algebra we can change this into r*sin(angleInRadians) = y
Boom, you have your y coordinate.
Almost the same thing: cos(angleInRadians) = x/r
So r*cos(angleInRadians) = x
There's your x coordinate.
The you can get the angle of a body directly from box2d, so that's easy. You just need to pick a value for 'r' that represents a correct radius for the circle that you're using to conceptualize the barrel of the cannon at a given angle. If the cannon rotates around the center of the circle, then r is the length of your cannon.
I had an issue which is similar to yours. Here's the question with an answer:
Android. How to move object in the direction it is facing (using Vector3 and Quaternion)
You need something like
translation.set(baseDirection).rot(modelInstance.transform).nor()

How to convert mouse movements to rotation of an element

I'm building a wheel menu control. The idea is you spin the wheel until the item you want to act on is in view, then you click on it or whatever. I'm trying to figure out how to translate the user's mouse movements (x & y) into the number of degrees to spin the wheel. I can implement it all, I just am missing the math to do the conversion. Any help or pointers are appreciated!
If the user moves the mouse from [x1,y1] to [x2,y2], what you basically want is to find
θ=θ1-θ2
Where:
θ1 = Math.atan2(y1, x1);
θ2 = Math.atan2(y2, x2);
Now all of this depends on where you define your origin (center of your wheel). If your origin is [x0,y0], then just subtract those values from the actual mouse co-ordinates.
Also on screen, the co-ordinate system is upside down, so 0,0 is in the top-left instead of bottom-left, so you'd need to flip that, but the math is essentially the same.
Also note that the angle is measured in radians and not degrees.
Take the atan2() of two subsequent positions offset from the center of the control and change the value by the delta of the angles multiplied by a constant.

moving items in JPanel

I am working on a pong game and I am working on the mechanism to move the ball. If I add 1 to x the ball moves 1 pixel to the right, if i add 1 to y the ball moves 1 pixel to the bottom. What if I want to move the ball at a certain angle how can 1 calculate the coordinates.
Trying to work with angles will get a bit more complicated than you need to get. For this kind of animation you generally want to use floats to store your objects x and y coordinates and move it by applying x and y deltas (The floats will preserve the detail of the position which is lost to rounding when drawn on the screen). The deltas represent the speed your object is moving in each axis and can be negative or positive.
For each iteration of your animation, add xdelta to your x coordinate and add ydelta to your y coordinate. Round them off to position them on the screen.
When you hit the top or bottom border, you would swap the sign on your ydelta component and likewise for side borders.
You wouldn't want to keep the same x and y delta all the time so when the objects hits a paddle, modify the x or y delta a little bit to change up the angle.
you are looking for line drawing algorithms, something like Bresenham or DDA you can find some reasonable implementations here ofcourse instead of drawing a complete line you would move your ball along that line but the way of finding the set of lines to move on is the same.
You might find these resources helpful.
for something like Pong you should be investigating vector math, but if all you want is to know an angle all you really need is SOHCAHTOA.

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