I would like to use pyephem or skyfield to find the degree of the local horizon (starting from South = 0°) at which is located the highest point of the ecliptic. Note that I am not trying to find the culmination of a planet. It could well be that, when looking South, there is no planet on the ecliptic by that time/latitude, but there will still be a highest point of the ecliptic. Can anyone help?
While it’s likely that someone will soon jump in with a closed-form solution that uses spherical trigonometry — in which case it’s likely that Skyfield or PyEphem will only be used to determine the Earth orientation — here’s a quick way to get an answer within about a degree:
Generate the ecliptic as 360 points one degree apart across the sky.
Compute the altitude and azimuth of each one.
Choose the highest.
The result agrees closely to what I see if I open Stellarium, turn on the ecliptic, and choose a field star right near the point where the ecliptic reaches the highest point in the sky.
import numpy as np
from skyfield import api, framelib
from skyfield.positionlib import Apparent
𝜏 = api.tau
ts = api.load.timescale()
eph = api.load('de421.bsp')
bluffton = api.Topos('40.74 N', '84.11 W')
t = ts.utc(2021, 2, 16, 22, 52)
angle = np.arange(360) / 360.0 * 𝜏
zero = angle * 0.0
f = framelib.ecliptic_frame
d = api.Distance([np.sin(angle), np.cos(angle), zero])
v = api.Velocity([zero, zero, zero])
p = Apparent.from_time_and_frame_vectors(t, f, d, v)
p.center = bluffton
alt, az, distance = p.altaz()
i = np.argmax(alt.degrees) # Which of the 360 points has highest altitude?
print('Altitude of highest point on ecliptic:', alt.degrees[i])
print('Azimuth of highest point on ecliptic:', az.degrees[i])
The result:
Altitude of highest point on ecliptic: 67.5477569215633
Azimuth of highest point on ecliptic: 163.42529398930515
This is probably a computationally expensive enough approach that it won’t interest you once you or someone else does the spherical trigonometry to find an equation for the azimuth; but at the very least this might provide numbers to check possible formulae against.
Related
I cannot find exactly what I'm looking for or reading google documentation I missed it, I just need a function or whatever to submit 2 point, start and end, and get X waypoint in between.
Is there some api like "www.somesite.com/api.php?start=43.12,12.23&end=44.12,12.23&number_of_waypoints=5" that return some json?
thank you!
First of all, this will require working with geodesics, which are the shortest lines passing through two points around the Earth, assuming the Earth is an ellipsoid. WGS84 is the standard coordinate system you will see most widely used for "latitude + longitude" coordinates, and this assumes the Earth is an ellipsoid.
To solve this problem, you first need to find the azimuth (bearing angle from north) and distance between two coordinates. The way to calculate this is by solving the inverse geodesic problem.
Once we have this distance (let's say in metres), we can divide it by n, where n - 1 is the number of waypoints we want in between the line. This gives us the distance d metres between each waypoint.
Now, we need to plot points at intervals of d metres along this line. To do this, we can solve the direct geodesic problem. This gives us a new set of coordinates after moving a given distance from a given point with a given azimuth. We can do this repeatedly to get new points moving d metres from the previous point each time. One thing to note with this is that the resultant azimuth to the end of the line from different points within the line will vary, so the destination azimuth must be obtained after each stage and used for calculating the next point.
Solving the direct and inverse geodesic problems requires mathematical formulas, of which multiple are available. However, for your PHP application, you are probably best not trying to implement these yourself, but instead use a library which can do this for you. One popular library for PHP which does this is called phpgeo.
Here's an example of how this might be implemented with phpgeo:
<?php
use Location\Coordinate;
use Location\Distance\Vincenty;
use Location\Bearing\BearingEllipsoidal;
$numPoints = 5;
$coordsA = new Coordinate(50.0, 0.0);
$coordsB = new Coordinate(51.0, 1.0);
$bearingCalculator = new BearingEllipsoidal();
$distanceCalculator = new Vincenty();
// Inverse geodesic problem
// Calculate total length of line between coords
$totalDistance = $distanceCalculator->getDistance($coordsA, $coordsB);
$intervalDistance = $totalDistance / ($numPoints + 1);
// Inverse geodesic problem
// Calculate angle to destination
$currentBearing = $bearingCalculator->calculateBearing($coordsA, $coordsB);
$currentCoords = $coordsA;
$points = [];
for ($i = 0; $i < $numPoints; $i++) {
// Direct geodesic problem
// Calculate new point along line
$currentCoords =
$bearingCalculator->calculateDestination($currentCoords,
$currentBearing,
$intervalDistance);
// Add these new coordinates to the list
array_push($points, $currentCoords);
// Inverse geodesic problem
// Recalculate angle to destination
$currentBearing =
$bearingCalculator->calculateBearing($currentCoords,
$coordsB);
}
// Print out the list of points
foreach ($points as $point) {
echo "{$point->getLat()}, {$point->getLng()}\n";
}
I have a list of X,Y coordinates that represents a road. For every 5 meters, I need to calculate the angle of the tangent on this road, as I have tried to illustrate in the image.
My problem is that this road is not represented by a mathematical function that I can simply derive, it is represented by a list of coordinates (UTM33N).
In my other similar projects we use ArcGIS/ESRI libraries to perform geographical functions such as this, but in this project I need to be independent of any software that require the end user to have a license, so I need to do the calculations myself (or find a free/open source library that can do it).
I am using a cubic spline function to make the line rounded between the coordinates, since all tangents on a line segment would just be parallell to the segment otherwise.
But now I am stuck. I am considering simply calculating the angle between any three points on the line (given enough points), and using this to find the tangents, but that doesn't sound like a good method. Any suggestions?
In the end, I concluded that the points were plentiful enough to give an accurate angle using simple geometry:
//Calculate delta values
var dx = next.X - curr.X;
var dy = next.Y - curr.Y;
var dz = next.Z - curr.Z;
//Calculate horizontal and 3D length of this segment.
var hLength = Math.Sqrt(dx * dx + dy * dy);
var length = Math.Sqrt(hLength * hLength + dz * dz);
//Calculate horizontal and vertical angles.
hAngle = Math.Atan(dy/dx);
vAngle = Math.Atan(dz/hLength);
I would like to have the ecliptic coordinates of a point on Earth. I can set up an observer using Pyephem:
station = ephem.Observer()
station.lon = '14:18:40.7'
station.lat = '48:19:14.0'
station.pressure = 0
station.epoch = ephem.J2000
station.elevation = 100.0
Then setup a date
station.date = ephem.date(datetime.utcnow())
But I don't know how to get this point coordinates in the Ecliptic system. If I try the Ecliptic function on the station Object it fails. Is there a way to do that in PyEphem?
If by “the ecliptic coordinates of a point on Earth” you mean “the ecliptic latitude and longitude which are overhead for a point on Earth,” then you might be able to generate a correct position by asking for the RA and declination of the point in the sky directly overhead for the location — where “directly overhead” is expressed astronomically as “at 90° altitude in the sky.” You would follow your code above with something like:
ra, dec = station.radec_of('0', '90')
ec = ephem.Ecliptic(ra, dec)
print 'Ecliptic latitude:', ec.lat
print 'Ecliptic longitude:', ec.lon
Try this technique out and see whether it returns a value anything like what you are expecting!
I am developing an application for the iPhone using opencv. I have to use the method solvePnPRansac:
http://opencv.willowgarage.com/documentation/cpp/camera_calibration_and_3d_reconstruction.html
For this method I need to provide a camera matrix:
__ __
| fx 0 cx |
| 0 fy cy |
|_0 0 1 _|
where cx and cy represent the center pixel positions of the image and fx and fy represent focal lengths, but that is all the documentation says. I am unsure what to provide for these focal lengths. The iPhone 5 has a focal length of 4.1 mm, but I do not think that this value is usable as is.
I checked another website:
http://docs.opencv.org/modules/calib3d/doc/camera_calibration_and_3d_reconstruction.html
which shows how opencv creates camera matrices. Here it states that focal lengths are measured in pixel units.
I checked another website:
http://www.velocityreviews.com/forums/t500283-focal-length-in-pixels.html
(about half way down)
it says that focal length can be converted from units of millimeters to pixels using the equation: fx = fy = focalMM * pixelDensity / 25.4;
Another Link I found states that fx = focalMM * width / (sensorSizeMM);
fy = focalMM * length / (sensorSizeMM);
I am unsure about these equations and how to properly create this matrix.
Any help, advice, or links on how to create an accurate camera matrix (especially for the iPhone 5) would be greatly appreciated,
Isaac
p.s. I think that (fx/fy) or (fy/fx) might be equal to the aspect ratio of the camera, but that might be completely wrong.
UPDATE:
Pixel coordinates to 3D line (opencv)
using this link, I can figure out how they want fx and fy to be formatted because they use it to scale angles relative to their distance from the center. therefore, fx and fy are likely in pixels/(unit length) but im still not sure what this unit length needs to be, can it be arbitrary as long as x and y are scaled to each other?
You can get an initial (rough) estimate of the focal length in pixel dividing the focal length in mm by the width of a pixel of the camera' sensor (CCD, CMOS, whatever).
You get the former from the camera manual, or read it from the EXIF header of an image taken at full resolution. Finding out the latter is a little more complicated: you may look up on the interwebs the sensor's spec sheet, if you know its manufacturer and model number, or you may just divide the overall width of its sensitive area by the number of pixels on the side.
Absent other information, it's usually safe to assume that the pixels are square (i.e. fx == fy), and that the sensor is orthogonal to the lens's focal axis (i.e. that the term in the first row and second column of the camera matrix is zero). Also, the pixel coordinates of the principal point (cx, cy) are usually hard to estimate accurately without a carefully designed calibration rig, and an as-carefully executed calibration procedure (that's because they are intrinsically confused with the camera translation parallel to the image plane). So it's best to just set them equal to the geometrical geometrical center of the image, unless you know that the image has been cropped asymmetrically.
Therefore, your simplest camera model has only one unknown parameter, the focal length f = fx = fy.
Word of advice: in your application is usually more convenient to carry around the horizontal (or vertical) field-of-view angle, rather than the focal length in pixels. This is because the FOV is invariant to image scaling.
The "focal length" you are dealing with here is simply a scaling factor from objects in the world to camera pixels, used in the pinhole camera model (Wikipedia link). That's why its units are pixels/unit length. For a given f, an object of size L at a distance (perpendicular to the camera) z, would be f*L/z pixels.
So, you could estimate the focal length by placing an object of known size at a known distance of your camera and measuring its size in the image. You could aso assume the central point is the center of the image. You should definitely not ignore the lens distortion (dist_coef parameter in solvePnPRansac).
In practice, the best way to obtain the camera matrix and distortion coefficients is to use a camera calibration tool. You can download and use the MRPT camera_calib software from this link, there's also a video tutorial here. If you use matlab, go for the Camera Calibration Toolbox.
Here you have a table with the spec of the cameras for iPhone 4 and 5.
The calculation is:
double f = 4.1;
double resX = (double)(sourceImage.cols);
double resY = (double)(sourceImage.rows);
double sensorSizeX = 4.89;
double sensorSizeY = 3.67;
double fx = f * resX / sensorSizeX;
double fy = f * resY / sensorSizeY;
double cx = resX/2.;
double cy = resY/2.;
Try this:
func getCamMatrix()->(Float, Float, Float, Float)
{
let format:AVCaptureDeviceFormat? = deviceInput?.device.activeFormat
let fDesc:CMFormatDescriptionRef = format!.formatDescription
let dim:CGSize = CMVideoFormatDescriptionGetPresentationDimensions(fDesc, true, true)
// dim = dimensioni immagine finale
let cx:Float = Float(dim.width) / 2.0;
let cy:Float = Float(dim.height) / 2.0;
let HFOV : Float = format!.videoFieldOfView
let VFOV : Float = ((HFOV)/cx)*cy
let fx:Float = abs(Float(dim.width) / (2 * tan(HFOV / 180 * Float(M_PI) / 2)));
let fy:Float = abs(Float(dim.height) / (2 * tan(VFOV / 180 * Float(M_PI) / 2)));
return (fx, fy, cx, cy)
}
Old thread, present problem.
As Milo and Isaac mentioned after Milo's answer, there seems to be no "common" params available for, say, the iPhone 5.
For what it is worth, here is the result of a run with the MRPT calibration tool, with a good old iPhone 5:
[CAMERA_PARAMS]
resolution=[3264 2448]
cx=1668.87585
cy=1226.19712
fx=3288.47697
fy=3078.59787
dist=[-7.416752e-02 1.562157e+00 1.236471e-03 1.237955e-03 -5.378571e+00]
Average err. of reprojection: 1.06726 pixels (OpenCV error=1.06726)
Note that dist means distortion here.
I am conducting experiments on a toy project, with these parameters---kind of ok. If you do use them on your own project, please keep in mind that they may be hardly good enough to get started. The best will be to follow Milo's recommendation with your own data. The MRPT tool is quite easy to use, with the checkerboard they provide. Hope this does help getting started !
I'm solving the following problem: I have an object and I know its position now and its position 300ms ago. I assume the object is moving. I have a point to which I want the object to get.
What I need is to get the angle from my current object to the destination point in such a format that I know whether to turn left or right.
The idea is to assume the current angle from the last known position and the current position.
I'm trying to solve this in MATLAB. I've tried using several variations with atan2 but either I get the wrong angle in some situations (like when my object is going in circles) or I get the wrong angle in all situations.
Examples of code that screws up:
a = new - old;
b = dest - new;
alpha = atan2(a(2) - b(2), a(1) - b(1);
where new is the current position (eg. x = 40; y = 60; new = [x y];), old is the 300ms old position and dest is the destination point.
Edit
Here's a picture to demonstrate the problem with a few examples:
In the above image there are a few points plotted and annotated. The black line indicates our estimated current facing of the object.
If the destination point is dest1 I would expect an angle of about 88°.
If the destination point is dest2 I would expect an angle of about 110°.
If the destination point is dest3 I would expect an angle of about -80°.
Firstly, you need to note the scale on the sample graph you show above. The x-axis ticks move in steps of 1, and the y-axis ticks move in steps of 20. The picture with the two axes appropriately scaled (like with the command axis equal) would be a lot narrower than you have, so the angles you expect to get are not right. The expected angles will be close to right angles, just a few degrees off from 90 degrees.
The equation Nathan derives is valid for column vector inputs a and b:
theta = acos(a'*b/(sqrt(a'*a) * sqrt(b'*b)));
If you want to change this equation to work with row vectors, you would have to switch the transpose operator in both the calculation of the dot product as well as the norms, like so:
theta = acos(a*b'/(sqrt(a*a') * sqrt(b*b')));
As an alternative, you could just use the functions DOT and NORM:
theta = acos(dot(a,b)/(norm(a)*norm(b)));
Finally, you have to account for the direction, i.e. whether the angle should be positive (turn clockwise) or negative (turn counter-clockwise). You can do this by computing the sign of the z component for the cross product of b and a. If it's positive, the angle should be positive. If it's negative, the angle should be negative. Using the function SIGN, our new equation becomes:
theta = sign(b(1)*a(2)-b(2)*a(1)) * acos(dot(a,b)/(norm(a)*norm(b)));
For your examples, the above equation gives an angle of 88.85, 92.15, and -88.57 for your three points dest1, dest2, and dest3.
NOTE: One special case you will need to be aware of is if your object is moving directly away from the destination point, i.e. if the angle between a and b is 180 degrees. In such a case you will have to pick an arbitrary turn direction (left or right) and a number of degrees to turn (180 would be ideal ;) ). Here's one way you could account for this condition using the function EPS:
theta = acos(dot(a,b)/(norm(a)*norm(b))); %# Compute theta
if abs(theta-pi) < eps %# Check if theta is within some tolerance of pi
%# Pick your own turn direction and amount here
else
theta = sign(b(1)*a(2)-b(2)*a(1))*theta; %# Find turn direction
end
You can try using the dot-product of the vectors.
Define the vectors 'a' and 'b' as:
a = new - old;
b = dest - new;
and use the fact that the dot product is:
a dot b = norm2(a) * norm2(b) * cos(theta)
where theta is the angle between two vectors, and you get:
cos(theta) = (a dot b)/ (norm2(a) * norm2(b))
The best way to calculate a dot b, assuming they are column vectors, is like this:
a_dot_b = a'*b;
and:
norm2(a) = sqrt(a'*a);
so you get:
cos(theta) = a'*b/(sqrt((a'*a)) * sqrt((b'*b)))
Depending on the sign of the cosine you either go left or right
Essentially you have a line defined by the points old and new and wish to determine if dest is on right or the left of that line? In which case have a look at this previous question.