My concern are quadratic bezier triangles which I'm trying to tesselate for rendering them.
I've managed to implement this by subdividing the triangle recursively like described in a wikipedia page. Though I'd like to get more precision to subdivision. The problem is that I'll either get too few subdivisions or too many because the amount of surfaces doubles on every iteration of that algorithm.
In particular I would need an adaptive tesselation algorithm that allows me to define the amount of segments at the edges. I'm not sure whether I can get that though so I'd also like to hear about uniform tesselation techniques.
Hardest trouble I have trouble with calculating normals for a point in bezier surface, which I'm not sure whether I need, but been trying to solve out.
Adaptive tesselation. There are many algorithms to this. But here's one:
def line_angle((x0,y0),(x1,y1)):
return atan2(y1-y0,x1-x0)
def adaptive_bezier(p0,p1,p2,lev=32):
p01 = midpoint(p0,p1)
p12 = midpoint(p1,p2)
m = midpoint(p01, p12)
da = abs(line_angle(p0,p1) - line_angle(p1,p2))
if da <= max_tolerance or lev <= 0:
yield m
else:
for p in adaptive_bezier(p0,p01,m,lev-1): yield p
for p in adaptive_bezier(m,p12,p2,lev-1): yield p
For tesselating triangles this way there are complications to the matter. You need to drive the adaptive tesselator algorithm according to the angles of the edge beziers. There's three unique ways how your triangle can split when tesselating.
2 edges one edge 3 edges
-------- --------- --------
\ ...// \ | / \ / \ /
\/___/ \ | / \____/
\ / \ | / \ /
\/ \|/ \/
Define tesselation results for these patterns and you're well off. Only the tesselation with one edge is described in wikipedia article.
Two other tesselation results can be obtained by studying the case of one edge split.
"2 edges" can be obtained straight out by splitting first one edge and then another.
"3 edges" is a bit more work to find out. But you can see the "2 edges" -case brings you a mid-edge. In the case of quadratic bezier triangle it is an averaged sum of diamond appearing there:
-------- /\
\ / / \
\____/ -____-
\ / \ /
\/ \/
Related
In steganography, the least significant bit (LSB) substitution method embeds the secret bits in the place of bits from the cover medium, for example, image pixels. In some methods, the Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT) of the image is taken and the secret bits are embedded in the DWT coefficients, after which the inverse trasform is used to reconstruct the stego image.
However, the DWT produces float coefficients and for the LSB substitution method integer values are required. Most papers I've read use the 2D Haar Wavelet, yet, they aren't clear on their methodology. I've seen the transform being defined in terms of low and high pass filters (float transforms), or taking the sum and difference of pair values, or the average and mean difference, etc.
More explicitly, either in the forward or the inverse transform (but not necessarily in both depending on the formulas used) eventually float numbers will appear. I can't have them for the coefficients because the substitution won't work and I can't have them for the reconstructed pixels because the image requires integer values for storage.
For example, let's consider a pair of pixels, A and B as a 1D array. The low frequency coefficient is defined by the sum, i.e., s = A + B, and the high frequency coefficient by the difference, i.e., d = A - B. We can then reconstruct the original pixels with B = (s - d) / 2 and A = s - B. However, after any bit twiddling with the coefficients, s - d may not be even anymore and float values will emerge for the reconstructed pixels.
For the 2D case, the 1D transform is applied separately for the rows and the columns, so eventually a division by 4 will occur somewhere. This can result in values with float remainders .00, .25, .50 and .75. I've only come across one paper which addresses this issue. The rest are very vague in their methodology and I struggle to replicate them. Yet, the DWT has been widely implemented for image steganography.
My question is, since some of the literature I've read hasn't been enlightening, how can this be possible? How can one use a transform which introduces float values, yet the whole steganography method requires integers?
One solution that has worked for me is using the Integer Wavelet Transform, which some also refer to as a lifting scheme. For the Haar wavelet, I've seen it defined as:
s = floor((A + B) / 2)
d = A - B
And for inverse:
A = s + floor((d + 1) / 2)
B = s - floor(d / 2)
All the values throughout the whole process are integers. The reason it works is because the formulas contain information about both the even and odd parts of the pixels/coefficients, so there is no loss of information from rounding down. Even if one modifies the coefficients and then takes the inverse transform, the reconstructed pixels will still be integers.
Example implementation in Python:
import numpy as np
def _iwt(array):
output = np.zeros_like(array)
nx, ny = array.shape
x = nx // 2
for j in xrange(ny):
output[0:x,j] = (array[0::2,j] + array[1::2,j])//2
output[x:nx,j] = array[0::2,j] - array[1::2,j]
return output
def _iiwt(array):
output = np.zeros_like(array)
nx, ny = array.shape
x = nx // 2
for j in xrange(ny):
output[0::2,j] = array[0:x,j] + (array[x:nx,j] + 1)//2
output[1::2,j] = output[0::2,j] - array[x:nx,j]
return output
def iwt2(array):
return _iwt(_iwt(array.astype(int)).T).T
def iiwt2(array):
return _iiwt(_iiwt(array.astype(int).T).T)
Some languages already have built-in functions for this purpose. For example, Matlab uses lwt2() and ilwt2() for 2D lifting-scheme wavelet transform.
els = {'p',[-0.125 0.125],0};
lshaarInt = liftwave('haar','int2int');
lsnewInt = addlift(lshaarInt,els);
[cAint,cHint,cVint,cDint] = lwt2(x,lsnewInt) % x is your image
xRecInt = ilwt2(cAint,cHint,cVint,cDint,lsnewInt);
An article example where IWT was used for image steganography is Raja, K.B. et. al (2008) Robust image adaptive steganography using integer wavelets.
I'm trying to figure out the most efficient/fast way to add a large number of convex quads (four given x,y points) into an array/list and then to check against those quads if a point is within or on the border of those quads.
I originally tried using ray casting but thought that it was a little overkill since I know that all my polygons will be quads and that they are also all convex.
currently, I am splitting each quad into two triangles that share an edge and then checking if the point is on or in each of those two triangles using their areas.
for example
Triangle ABC and test point P.
if (areaPAB + areaPAC + areaPBC == areaABC) { return true; }
This seems like it may run a little slow since I need to calculate the area of 4 different triangles to run the check and if the first triangle of the quad returns false, I have to get 4 more areas. (I include a bit of an epsilon in the check to make up for floating point errors)
I'm hoping that there is an even faster way that might involve a single check of a point against a quad rather than splitting it into two triangles.
I've attempted to reduce the number of checks by putting the polygon's into an array[,]. When adding a polygon, it checks the minimum and maximum x and y values and then using those, places the same poly into the proper array positions. When checking a point against the available polygons, it retrieves the proper list from the array of lists.
I've been searching through similar questions and I think what I'm using now may be the fastest way to figure out if a point is in a triangle, but I'm hoping that there's a better method to test against a quad that is always convex. Every polygon test I've looked up seems to be testing against a polygon that has many sides or is an irregular shape.
Thanks for taking the time to read my long winded question to what's prolly a simple problem.
I believe that fastest methods are:
1: Find mutual orientation of all vector pairs (DirectedEdge-CheckedPoint) through cross product signs. If all four signs are the same, then point is inside
Addition: for every edge
EV[i] = V[i+1] - V[i], where V[] - vertices in order
PV[i] = P - V[i]
Cross[i] = CrossProduct(EV[i], PV[i]) = EV[i].X * PV[i].Y - EV[i].Y * PV[i].X
Cross[i] value is positive, if point P lies in left semi-plane relatively to i-th edge (V[i] - V[i+1]), and negative otherwise. If all the Cross[] values are positive, then point p is inside the quad, vertices are in counter-clockwise order. f all the Cross[] values are negative, then point p is inside the quad, vertices are in clockwise order. If values have different signs, then point is outside the quad.
If quad set is the same for many point queries, then dmuir suggests to precalculate uniform line equation for every edge. Uniform line equation is a * x + b * y + c = 0. (a, b) is normal vector to edge. This equation has important property: sign of expression
(a * P.x + b * Y + c) determines semi-plane, where point P lies (as for crossproducts)
2: Split quad to 2 triangles and use vector method for each: express CheckedPoint vector in terms of basis vectors.
P = a*V1+b*V2
point is inside when a,b>=0 and their sum <=1
Both methods require about 10-15 additions, 6-10 multiplications and 2-7 comparisons (I don't consider floating point error compensation)
If you could afford to store, with each quad, the equation of each of its edges then you could save a little time over MBo's answer.
For example if you have an inward pointing normal vector N for each edge of the quad, and a constant d (which is N.p for one of the vertcies p on the edge) then a point x is in the quad if and only if N.x >= d for each edge. So thats 2 multiplications, one addition and one comparison per edge, and you'll need to perform up to 4 tests per point.This technique works for any convex polygon.
!I have values in the form of (x,y,z). By creating a list_plot3d plot i can clearly see that they are not quite evenly spaced. They usually form little "blobs" of 3 to 5 points on the xy plane. So for the interpolation and the final "contour" plot to be better, or should i say smoother(?), do i have to create a rectangular grid (like the squares on a chess board) so that the blobs of data are somehow "smoothed"? I understand that this might be trivial to some people but i am trying this for the first time and i am struggling a bit. I have been looking at the scipy packages like scipy.interplate.interp2d but the graphs produced at the end are really bad. Maybe a brief tutorial on 2d interpolation in sagemath for an amateur like me? Some advice? Thank you.
EDIT:
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0Bxv8ab9PeMQVUFhBYWlldU9ib0E/edit?pli=1
This is mostly the kind of graphs it produces along with this message:
Warning: No more knots can be added because the number of B-spline
coefficients
already exceeds the number of data points m. Probably causes:
either
s or m too small. (fp>s)
kx,ky=3,3 nx,ny=17,20 m=200 fp=4696.972223 s=0.000000
To get this graph i just run this command:
f_interpolation = scipy.interpolate.interp2d(*zip(*matrix(C)),kind='cubic')
plot_interpolation = contour_plot(lambda x,y:
f_interpolation(x,y)[0], (22.419,22.439),(37.06,37.08) ,cmap='jet', contours=numpy.arange(0,1400,100), colorbar=True)
plot_all = plot_interpolation
plot_all.show(axes_labels=["m", "m"])
Where matrix(c) can be a huge matrix like 10000 X 3 or even a lot more like 1000000 x 3. The problem of bad graphs persists even with fewer data like the picture i attached now where matrix(C) was only 200 x 3. That's why i begin to think that it could be that apart from a possible glitch with the program my approach to the use of this command might be totally wrong, hence the reason for me to ask for advice about using a grid and not just "throwing" my data into a command.
I've had a similar problem using the scipy.interpolate.interp2d function. My understanding is that the issue arises because the interp1d/interp2d and related functions use an older wrapping of FITPACK for the underlying calculations. I was able to get a problem similar to yours to work using the spline functions, which rely on a newer wrapping of FITPACK. The spline functions can be identified because they seem to all have capital letters in their names here http://docs.scipy.org/doc/scipy/reference/interpolate.html. Within the scipy installation, these newer functions appear to be located in scipy/interpolate/fitpack2.py, while the functions using the older wrappings are in fitpack.py.
For your purposes, RectBivariateSpline is what I believe you want. Here is some sample code for implementing RectBivariateSpline:
import numpy as np
from scipy import interpolate
# Generate unevenly spaced x/y data for axes
npoints = 25
maxaxis = 100
x = (np.random.rand(npoints)*maxaxis) - maxaxis/2.
y = (np.random.rand(npoints)*maxaxis) - maxaxis/2.
xsort = np.sort(x)
ysort = np.sort(y)
# Generate the z-data, which first requires converting
# x/y data into grids
xg, yg = np.meshgrid(xsort,ysort)
z = xg**2 - yg**2
# Generate the interpolated, evenly spaced data
# Note that the min/max of x/y isn't necessarily 0 and 100 since
# randomly chosen points were used. If we want to avoid extrapolation,
# the explicit min/max must be found
interppoints = 100
xinterp = np.linspace(xsort[0],xsort[-1],interppoints)
yinterp = np.linspace(ysort[0],ysort[-1],interppoints)
# Generate the kernel that will be used for interpolation
# Note that the default version uses three coefficients for
# interpolation (i.e. parabolic, a*x**2 + b*x +c). Higher order
# interpolation can be used by setting kx and ky to larger
# integers, i.e. interpolate.RectBivariateSpline(xsort,ysort,z,kx=5,ky=5)
kernel = interpolate.RectBivariateSpline(xsort,ysort,z)
# Now calculate the linear, interpolated data
zinterp = kernel(xinterp, yinterp)
I have two rectangles, one is moving and one is stationary. I have the size of both rectangles and both the current coordinates of the moving rectangle and the coordinates of where it wants to go. It will move in a straight line. With this information, what is the most effective way to find if the two boxes will collide on the path. Is it more efficient to do this or to move the box a small amount each frame and do a collision detection each time?
Since one of the rectangles is stationary, one way to do this is to create a polygon of the path travelled by the moving rectangle, which can be done using only its initial and final positions:
(initial position)
+--------+
|\ |\
| \ | \
+--\-----+ \
\ \ \ \
\ +-----\--+
\ | \ |
\| \|
+--------+
(final position)
Path polygon:
+--------+
| \
| \
+ \
\ \
\ +
\ |
\ |
+--------+
Then use a normal polygon collision detection algorithm between the stationary rectangle and the path polygon.
If it's moving at a constant speed the most efficient way is to calculate when they will collide (Time = Speed/Distance) and if they will collide (Derive a linear equation of motion, and see if it will pass through the stationary rectangle). If it's moving at a variable speed, perform these calculations each time the speed changes. These are both far more efficient than comparing for each frame.
edit
So based on the answers so far (thanks for taking your time) I'm getting the sense that I'm probably NOT looking for a Normal Distribution function. Perhaps I'll try to re-describe what I'm looking to do.
Lets say I have an object that returns a number of 0 to 10. And that number controls "speed". However instead of 10 being the top speed, I need 5 to be the top speed, and anything lower or higher would slow down accordingly. (with easing, thus the bell curve)
I hope that's clearer ;/
-original question
These are the times I wish I remembered something from math class.
I'm trying to figure out how to write a function in obj-C where I define the boundries, ex (0 - 10) and then if x = foo y = ? .... where x runs something like 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10 and y runs 0,1,2,3,4,5,4,3,2,1,0 but only on a curve
Something like the attached image.
I tried googling for Normal Distribution but its way over my head. I was hoping to find some site that lists some useful algorithms like these but wasn't very successful.
So can anyone help me out here ? And if there is some good sites which shows useful mathematical functions, I'd love to check them out.
TIA!!!
-added
I'm not looking for a random number, I'm looking for.. ex: if x=0 y should be 0, if x=5 y should be 5, if x=10 y should be 0.... and all those other not so obvious in between numbers
alt text http://dizy.cc/slider.gif
Okay, your edit really clarifies things. You're not looking for anything to do with the normal distribution, just a nice smooth little ramp function. The one Paul provides will do nicely, but is tricky to modify for other values. It can be made a little more flexible (my code examples are in Python, which should be very easy to translate to any other language):
def quarticRamp(x, b=10, peak=5):
if not 0 <= x <= b:
raise ValueError #or return 0
return peak*x*x*(x-b)*(x-b)*16/(b*b*b*b)
Parameter b is the upper bound for the region you want to have a slope on (10, in your example), and peak is how high you want it to go (5, in the example).
Personally I like a quadratic spline approach, which is marginally cheaper computationally and has a different curve to it (this curve is really nice to use in a couple of special applications that don't happen to matter at all for you):
def quadraticSplineRamp(x, a=0, b=10, peak=5):
if not a <= x <= b:
raise ValueError #or return 0
if x > (b+a)/2:
x = a + b - x
z = 2*(x-a)/b
if z > 0.5:
return peak * (1 - 2*(z-1)*(z-1))
else:
return peak * (2*z*z)
This is similar to the other function, but takes a lower bound a (0 in your example). The logic is a little more complex because it's a somewhat-optimized implementation of a piecewise function.
The two curves have slightly different shapes; you probably don't care what the exact shape is, and so could pick either. There are an infinite number of ramp functions meeting your criteria; these are two simple ones, but they can get as baroque as you want.
The thing you want to plot is the probability density function (pdf) of the normal distribution. You can find it on the mighty Wikipedia.
Luckily, the pdf for a normal distribution is not difficult to implement - some of the other related functions are considerably worse because they require the error function.
To get a plot like you showed, you want a mean of 5 and a standard deviation of about 1.5. The median is obviously the centre, and figuring out an appropriate standard deviation given the left & right boundaries isn't particularly difficult.
A function to calculate the y value of the pdf given the x coordinate, standard deviation and mean might look something like:
double normal_pdf(double x, double mean, double std_dev) {
return( 1.0/(sqrt(2*PI)*std_dev) *
exp(-(x-mean)*(x-mean)/(2*std_dev*std_dev)) );
}
A normal distribution is never equal to 0.
Please make sure that what you want to plot is indeed a
normal distribution.
If you're only looking for this bell shape (with the tangent and everything)
you can use the following formula:
x^2*(x-10)^2 for x between 0 and 10
0 elsewhere
(Divide by 125 if you need to have your peek on 5.)
double bell(double x) {
if ((x < 10) && (x>0))
return x*x*(x-10.)*(x-10.)/125.;
else
return 0.;
}
Well, there's good old Wikipedia, of course. And Mathworld.
What you want is a random number generator for "generating normally distributed random deviates". Since Objective C can call regular C libraries, you either need a C-callable library like the GNU Scientific Library, or for this, you can write it yourself following the description here.
Try simulating rolls of dice by generating random numbers between 1 and 6. If you add up the rolls from 5 independent dice rolls, you'll get a surprisingly good approximation to the normal distribution. You can roll more dice if you'd like and you'll get a better approximation.
Here's an article that explains why this works. It's probably more mathematical detail than you want, but you could show it to someone to justify your approach.
If what you want is the value of the probability density function, p(x), of a normal (Gaussian) distribution of mean mu and standard deviation sigma at x, the formula is
p(x) = exp( ((x-mu)^2)/(2*sigma^2) ) / (sigma * 2 * sqrt(pi))
where pi is the area of a circle divided by the square of its radius (approximately 3.14159...). Using the C standard library math.h, this is:
#include <math>
double normal_pdf(double x, double mu, double sigma) {
double n = sigma * 2 * sqrt(M_PI); //normalization factor
p = exp( -pow(x-mu, 2) / (2 * pow(sigma, 2)) ); // unnormalized pdf
return p / n;
}
Of course, you can do the same in Objective-C.
For reference, see the Wikipedia or MathWorld articles.
It sounds like you want to write a function that yields a curve of a specific shape. Something like y = f(x), for x in [0:10]. You have a constraint on the max value of y, and a general idea of what you want the curve to look like (somewhat bell-shaped, y=0 at the edges of the x range, y=5 when x=5). So roughly, you would call your function iteratively with the x range, with a step that gives you enough points to make your curve look nice.
So you really don't need random numbers, and this has nothing to do with probability unless you want it to (as in, you want your curve to look like a the outline of a normal distribution or something along those lines).
If you have a clear idea of what function will yield your desired curve, the code is trivial - a function to compute f(x) and a for loop to call it the desired number of times for the desired values of x. Plot the x,y pairs and you're done. So that's your algorithm - call a function in a for loop.
The contents of the routine implementing the function will depend on the specifics of what you want the curve to look like. If you need help on functions that might return a curve resembling your sample, I would direct you to the reading material in the other answers. :) However, I suspect that this is actually an assignment of some sort, and that you have been given a function already. If you are actually doing this on your own to learn, then I again echo the other reading suggestions.
y=-1*abs(x-5)+5