Approximating relative angle between two line segments on sphere surface - matlab

I am in need of an idea! I want to model the vascular network on the eye in 3D. I have made statistics on the branching behaviour in relation to vessel diameter, length etc. What I am stuck at right now is the visualization:
The eye is approximated as a sphere E with center in origo C = [0, 0, 0] and a radius r.
What I want to achieve is that based on the following input parameters, it should be able to draw a segment on the surface/perimeter of E:
Input:
Cartesian position of previous segment ending: P_0 = [x_0, y_0, z_0]
Segment length: L
Segment diameter: d
Desired angle relative to the previous segment: a (1)
Output:
Cartesian position of resulting segment ending: P_1 = [x_1, y_1, z_1]
What I do now, is the following:
From P_0, generate a sphere with radius L, representing all the points we could possibly draw to with the correct length. This set is called pool.
Limit pool to only include points with a distance to C between r*0.95 and r, so only the points around the perimeter of the eye are included.
Select only the point that would generate a relative angle (2) closest to the desired angle a.
The problem is, that whatever angle a I desire, is actually not what is measured by the dot product. Say I want an angle at 0 (i.e. that the new segment is following the same direction as the previous`, what I actually get is an angle around 30 degrees because of the curvature of the sphere. I guess what I want is more the 2D angle when looking from an angle orthogonal from the sphere to the branching point. Please take a look at the screenshots below for a visualization.
Any ideas?
(1) The reason for this is, that the child node with the greatest diameter is usually follows the path of the previous segment, whereas smaller child nodes tend to angle differently.
(2) Calculated by acos(dot(v1/norm(v1), v2/norm(v2)))
Screenshots explaining the problem:
Yellow line: previous segment
Red line: "new" segment to one of the points (not neccesarily the correct one)
Blue x'es: Pool (text=angle in radians)

I will restate the problem with my own notation:
Given two points P and Q on the surface of a sphere centered at C with radius r, find a new point T such that the angle of the turn from PQ to QT is A and the length of QT is L.
Because the segments are small in relation to the sphere, we will use a locally-planar approximation of the sphere at the pivot point Q. (If this isn't an okay assumption, you need to be more explicit in your question.)
You can then compute T as follows.
// First compute an aligned orthonormal basis {U,V,W}.
// - {U,V} should be a basis for the plane tangent at Q.
// - W should be normal to the plane tangent at Q.
// - U should be in the direction PQ in the plane tangent at Q
W = normalize(Q - C)
U = normalize(Q - P)
U = normalize(U - W * dotprod(W, U))
V = normalize(crossprod(W, U))
// Next compute the next point S in the plane tangent at Q.
// In a regular plane, the parametric equation of a unit circle
// centered at the origin is:
// f(A) = (cos A, sin A) = (1,0) cos A + (0,1) sin A
// We just do the same thing, but with the {U,V} basis instead
// of the standard basis {(1,0),(0,1)}.
S = Q + L * (U cos A + V sin A)
// Finally project S onto the sphere, obtaining the segment QT.
T = C + r * normalize(S - C)

Related

Cheapest way to find Vector magnitude from a given point and angle

I am trying to determine a players depth position on a plane, which defines the walkable ground in a 2D brawler game. The problem is depictured in the following drawing:
C represents the players current position. I need to find the magnitude of vector V. Since I am not strong on linear algebra, the one thing I can think of is: determining the intersection point P of L1 and L2, and then take the magnitude from AP. However, I get the feeling there must be an easier way to find V, since I already know the angle the vector should have, given by vector from AB.
Any input would be appreciated, since I am looking forward to step up my linear algebra game.
Edit: As it is unclear thanks to my lack of drawing skills: the geometry depicted above is a parallelogram. The vector V I am looking for is parallel to the left and right side of the parallelogram. Depth does not mean, that I am looking for the vector perpendicular to the top side, but it refers to the fake depth of a purely 2D game. The parallelogram is therefore used as a means for creating the feeling of walking along a z axis.
The depth of your player (length of V) as measured from the top line in your drawing, is just the difference between A.y and C.y. This is seperate from the slant in the parralelogram, as we're just looking at depth.
example:
float v;
Vector2 a = new Vector2(100, 100); //The point you're measuring from
Vector2 c = new Vector2(150, 150); //Your character position
v = c.y - a.y; // This is the length of V.
//In numbers: 50 = 150 - 100
Illustrated: image not to scale
This works for any coördinate in your plane.
Now if you'd want to get the length of AC is when you'd need to apply some pythagoras, which is a² + b² = c². In the example that would mean in code:
Vector2 a = new Vector2(100, 100);
Vector2 c = new Vector2(150, 150);
float ac1 = Mathf.Sqrt(Mathf.Pow(c.x - a.x, 2) + Mathf.Pow(c.y - a.y, 2));
Now that is quite a sore to have to type out every time, and looks quite scary. But Unity has you covered! There is a Vector method called Distance
float ac2 = Vector2.Distance(a, c);
Which both return 70.71068 which is the length of AC.
This works because for any point c in your area you can draw a right angled triangle from a to c.
Edit as per comment:
If you want your "depth" vector to be parallel with the sides of the paralellogram we can just create a triangle in the parallelogram of which we calculate the hypotenuse.
Since we want the new hypotenuse of our triangle to be parallel to the parallelogram we can use the same angle θ as point B has in your drawing (indicated by pink in mine), of which I understood you know the value.
We also know the length of the adjacent (indicated in blue) side of this new triangle, as that is the height we calculated earlier (c.y - a.y).
Using these two values we can use cosine to find the length of hypotenuse (indicated in red) of the triangle, which is equal to the vector V, in parallel with the parallelogram.
the formula for that is: hypotenuse = adjacent/cos(θ)
Now if we were to put some numbers in this, and for my example I took 55 for the angle θ. It would look like this
float v = 50/(cos(55));
image not to scale
Let's call the lower right vertex of the parallelogram D.
If the long sides of the parallelogram are horizontal, you can find magnitude of V vector by:
V.magnitude = (c.y - a.y) / sin(BAD)
Or if you prefer:
V.magnitude = AB.magnitude * (c.y - a.y)/(b.y - a.y)

Calculating a spiral in MATLAB

We have these logarithmic spirals which are circling around the centre of the coordinate system:
x = ebθ cos(θ)
y = ebθ sin(θ)
where the ebθ is the distance between the point (which is on the spiral) and the centre; and the θ is the angle between the line connecting the point and the origin and the axis x.
Consider a spiral where the angle is θ ϵ <0,10π> and the parameter is b=0.1. By thickening points on the spirals (and the angle θ) calculate the circumference with the relative precision better than 1%. Draw the spiral!
I'm preparing for a (MATLAB) test and I'm stuck with this exercise. Please help, any hint is appreciated.
Start by computing a list of x,y for your range of theta and value of b. For more accurate results, have your theta increment in smaller steps (I chose 5000 arbitrarily). Then, its simply computing the distance for each pair of consecutive points and summing them up.
t = linspace(0,10*pi,5000);
b = 0.1;
x = exp(b*t).*cos(t);
y = exp(b*t).*sin(t);
result = sum(sqrt((x(2:end) - x(1:end-1)).^2 + (y(2:end)-y(1:end-1)).^2))

How can I detect if a point is inside a cone or not, in 3D space?

How is possible to detect if a 3D point is inside a cone or not?
Ross cone = (x1, y1, h1)
Cone angle = alpha
Height of the cone = H
Cone radius = R
Coordinates of the point of the cone = P1 (x2, y2, h2)
Coordinates outside the cone = P2( x3, y3, h3)
Result for point1 = true
Result for point2 = false
To expand on Ignacio's answer:
Let
x = the tip of the cone
dir = the normalized axis vector, pointing from the tip to the base
h = height
r = base radius
p = point to test
So you project p onto dir to find the point's distance along the axis:
cone_dist = dot(p - x, dir)
At this point, you can reject values outside 0 <= cone_dist <= h.
Then you calculate the cone radius at that point along the axis:
cone_radius = (cone_dist / h) * r
And finally calculate the point's orthogonal distance from the axis to compare against the cone radius:
orth_distance = length((p - x) - cone_dist * dir)
is_point_inside_cone = (orth_distance < cone_radius)
The language-agnostic answer:
Find the equation of the line defining the main axis of your cone.
Compute the distance from the 3D point to the line, along with the intersection point along the line where the distance is perpendicular to the line.
Find the radius of your cone at the intersection point and check to see if the distance between the line and your 3D point is greater than (outside) or less than (inside) that radius.
A cone is simply an infinite number of circles whose size is defined by a linear equation that takes the distance from the point. Simply check if it's inside the circle of the appropriate size.
Wouldn't it be easier to compute angle between vector to center of cone and vector from apex pointing at point under evaluation. If vector projection is used and the length of the resultant vector is shorter then the vector pointing at the center of the cone the between the angle and length you know if you are inside a cone.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vector_projection

Draw Camera Range with Postgis

i am working on some camera data. I have some points which consist of azimuth, angle, distance, and of course coordinate field attributes. In postgresql postgis I want to draw shapes like this with functions.
how can i draw this pink range shape?
at first should i draw 360 degree circle then extracting out of my shape... i dont know how?
I would create a circle around the point(x,y) with your radius distance, then use the info below to create a triangle that has a larger height than the radius.
Then using those two polygons do an ST_Intersection between the two geometries.
NOTE: This method only works if the angle is less than 180 degrees.
Note, that if you extend the outer edges and meet it with a 90 degree angle from the midpoint of your arc, you have a an angle, and an adjacent side. Now you can SOH CAH TOA!
Get Points B and C
Let point A = (x,y)
To get the top point:
point B = (x + radius, y + (r * tan(angle)))
to get the bottom point:
point C = (x + radius, y - (r * tan(angle)))
Rotate your triangle to you azimouth
Now that you have the triangle, you need to rotate it to your azimuth, with a pivot point of A. This means you need point A at the origin when you do the rotation. The rotation is the trickiest part. Its used in computer graphics all the time. (Actually, if you know OpenGL you could get it to do the rotation for you.)
NOTE: This method rotates counter-clockwise through an angle (theta) around the origin. You might have to adjust your azimuth accordingly.
First step: translate your triangle so that A (your original x,y) is at 0,0. Whatever you added/subtracted to x and y, do the same for the other two points.
(You need to translate it because you need point A to be at the origin)
Second step: Then rotate points B and C using a rotation matrix. More info here, but I'll give you the formula:
Your new point is (x', y')
Do this for points B and C.
Third step: Translate them back to the original place by adding or subtracting. If you subtracted x last time, add it this time.
Finally, use points {A,B,C} to create a triangle.
And then do a ST_Intersection(geom_circle,geom_triangle);
Because this takes a lot of calculations, it would be best to write a program that does all these calculations and then populates a table.
PostGIS supports curves, so one way to achieve this that might require less math on your behalf would be to do something like:
SELECT ST_GeomFromText('COMPOUNDCURVE((0 0, 0 10), CIRCULARSTRING(0 10, 7.071 7.071, 10 0), (10 0, 0 0))')
This describes a sector with an origin at 0,0, a radius of 10 degrees (geographic coordinates), and an opening angle of 45°.
Wrapping that with additional functions to convert it from a true curve into a LINESTRING, reduce the coordinate precision, and to transform it into WKT:
SELECT ST_AsText(ST_SnapToGrid(ST_CurveToLine(ST_GeomFromText('COMPOUNDCURVE((0 0, 0 10), CIRCULARSTRING(0 10, 7.071 7.071, 10 0), (10 0, 0 0))')), 0.01))
Gives:
This requires a few pieces of pre-computed information (the position of the centre, and the two adjacent vertices, and one other point on the edge of the segment) but it has the distinct advantage of actually producing a truly curved geometry. It also works with segments with opening angles greater than 180°.
A tip: the 7.071 x and y positions used in the example can be computed like this:
x = {radius} cos {angle} = 10 cos 45 ≈ 7.0171
y = {radius} sin {angle} = 10 sin 45 ≈ 7.0171
Corner cases: at the antimeridian, and at the poles.

How can I correctly calculate the direction for a moving object?

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.