Draw 2D Curve in XNA - c#

Is there any way to generate a Curve class and then draw that curve in 2D on the screen in XNA?
I want to basically randomly generate some terrain using the Curve and then draw it. Hoping that I can then use that curve to detect collision with the ground.

It sounds like what you want is the 2D equivalent of a height-map. I'd avoid making a true "curve" and simply approximate one with line segments.
So basically you'll have an array or list of numbers that represent the height of your terrain at a series evenly spaced (horizontally) points. When you need a height between two points, you simply linearly interpolate between the two.
To generate it - you could set a few points randomly, and then do some form of smooth interpolation to set the rest. (It really depends on what kind of curve you want.)
To render it you could then just use a triangle strip. Each point in your height-map will have two vertices associated with it - one at the bottom of the screen, the other at the height of that point in the height-map.
To do collision detection - the easiest way is to have your objects be a single point (it sounds like you're making a artillery game like Scorched Earth) - simply take the X position of your object, get the Y position of your terrain at that X position, if the Y position of your object is below the terrain, set it so that it is on the terrain's surface.
That's the rough guide, anyway :)

Related

Sphere vs Rotation Box Custom Collision Problem (C#, Unity)

I'm not really like to post questions about problems without doing the research, but I'm close to give up, so I thought I give it a shot and ask you about my problem.
I want to create a custom collision detection in Unity ( So please don't advice "use rigidbody and\or colliders" because I don't want to use them by purpose).
The main idea: I want to detect Basic Sphere and Basic Box collision. I already find AABB vs Sphere theme with the following solution:
bool intersect(sphere, box) {
var x = Math.max(box.minX, Math.min(sphere.x, box.maxX));
var y = Math.max(box.minY, Math.min(sphere.y, box.maxY));
var z = Math.max(box.minZ, Math.min(sphere.z, box.maxZ));
var distance = Math.sqrt((x - sphere.x) * (x - sphere.x) +
(y - sphere.y) * (y - sphere.y) +
(z - sphere.z) * (z - sphere.z));
return distance < sphere.radius;
}
And this code does the job, the box bounding and the sphere center point with radius works fine, I can detect the Sphere collision on Box.
The problem is, I want to Rotating the Cube in Runtime, so that will screw up everything, the bounding will split away and the collision will gone (or collide on random places). I've read about some comments where they said, bounding not works with rotation, but I'm not sure what else can I use to solve this problem.
Can you help me with this topic please? I'll take every advice I can get (except Colliders & Rigidbodies of course).
Thank you very much.
You might try using the separating axis theorem. Essentially, for a polyhedron, you use the normal of each face to create an axis. Project the two shapes you are comparing onto each axis and look for an intersection. If there is no intersection along any of the axes, there is no intersection of shapes. For a sphere, you will just need to project onto the polyhedron's axes. There is a great 2D intro to this from metanet.
Edit: hey, check it out-- a Unity implementation.
A good method to find if an AABB (axis aligned bounding box) and sphere are intersecting is to find the closest point on the box to the sphere's center and determine if that point is within the sphere's radius. If so, then they are intersecting, if not then not.
I believe you can do the same thing with this more complicated scenario. You can represent a rotated AABB with a geometrical shape called a parallelepiped. You would then find the closest point on the parallelepiped to the center of the sphere and again check if that point exists within the sphere's radius. If so, then they intersect. If not, then not.
The difficult part is finding the closest point on the parallelepiped. You can represent a parallelepiped in code with 4 3d vectors: center, extentRight, extentUp, and extentForward. This is similar to how you can represent an AABB with a 3d vector for center along with 3 floats: extentRight, extentUp, and extentForward. The difference is that for the parallelepiped those 3 extents are not 1 dimensional scalars, but are full vectors.
When finding the closest point on an AABB surface to a given point, you are basically taking that given point and clamping it to the AABB's volume. You would, for example, call Math.Clamp(point.x, AABB.Min.x, AABB.Max.x) and so on for Y and Z.
The resulting X,Y,Z would be the closest point on the AABB surface to the given point.
To do this for a parallelepiped you need to solve the "linear combination" (math keyword) of extentRight(ER), extentUp(EU), and extentForward(EF) to get the given point. In other words, what scalars do you have to multiply ER, EU, and EF by to get to the given point? When you find those scalars you need to clamp them between 0 and 1 and then multiply them again by ER, EU, and EF respectively to get that closest point on the surface of the parallelepiped. Be sure to offset the given point by the Parallelepiped's min position so that the whole calculation is done in its local space.
I didn't want to spend any extra time learning how to solve for a linear combination (it seems it involves things like using an "augmented matrix" and "gaussian elimination") otherwise I'd include that here too. This should get you or anyone else reading this off to the right track hopefully.
Edit:
Actually I think its a lot simpler and you don't need a parallelepiped. If you have access to the rotation (Vector3 or Quaternion) that rotated the cube you could get the inverse of that and use that inverse rotation to orbit the sphere around the cube so that the new scenario is just the normal axis aligned cube and the orbited sphere. Then you can do a normal AABB - sphere collision detection.

Algorithm to reshape a deformed cube to normal cube with max size (furthest vertex)

I am wondering if there is an algorithm, or a mathematical function that starts from a deformed cube, gets the furthest vertices and reshapes the cube to a normal cube pased on the furthest vertices.
To make my question more clear, have a look at the following picture:
So I start with a deformed cube on the left and I want to transform it such that it will look like the second cube on the right. Since the vertex (2,2,3) is the furthest of them all, I believe it's correct to state that all other vertices should have the value 3 as their coördinates, which will result in a cube on the right?
To achieve this, is there an existing formula that I can apply in my programming language? Or should I write my own, something like: "loop over all vertices to find the furthest one. Then, from this vertex it's x,y,z coördinates which has the highest value (in this case z:3). Then put this value as the corresponding x,y,z coördinates of all other vertices?
update
Ofcourse I am aware that the same should apply if the furthest vertex has a negative coördinate, but this can easily be calculated.
no 3 is not the size because your deformed cube's center is not (0,0,0) !!! You should clarify what properties you need to preserve.
size
position
orientation (of what)
There are more ways to do this but if you need to preserve all of the above (with constrains to max the size):
compute center (avg point)
find out biggest diagonal and from that compute half size of your cube.
compute basis vectors
so just edges of your cube in 3 axises and set them to correct size and also make them perpendicular exploiting cross product.
construct new vertexes
so just translate from center along each basis vector to both directions and that is it. In case you do not need to preserve rotation you can skip #3 and use (1,0,0),(0,1,0),(0,0,1) as basis vectors directly.

How do Vectors and Matrices work into computer graphics, such as Matrix Rotations?

I have been trying to wrap my head around how my Linear and Vector Algerbra knowledge fits in with Computer Graphics. Particulary in the language C#
The knowledge I mean is:
Points
Vectors
Matrices
Matrix multiplaction - Rotations, Skews, etc..
Heres my goal: Create a simple box, and apply a rotation, translation, and skew to it via matrix multiplication. Afterwards, start messing around with the camera. I wish to do this all myself, only using the functions that actually take in the data and draw it. I wish to create all the logical stuff inbetween.
Heres what i've got so far:
My custom Vector3 class, which holds
-an X, Y, and Z variable (floats)
-Several static matrices (as 2x2 2d float arrays?) that hold ZERO and TRANSLATION matrices (for 2x2 and 3x3)
-Methods
1. Rotate(float inAngle) - Creates a rotation matrix and multiplies the xyz by it.
2. Translate(inx,iny,inz) - Adds the ins to the member variables
3. etc...
When complete, i translate the vector back into a C# Vector3 class and pass it to a drawing class, such as DrawPrimitiveShapes which would draw Lines.
The box class is like this:
4 Vector3's, UpperLeftX, UpperRightX, LowerLeftX, LowerRightX
a Draw class which uses the 4 points to then render lines to each one
My confusion comes at this:
How do I rotate this box? Am I on the right track by using 4 vector3's for the box?
Do I just rotate all four vector3's by the angle and be done with it? How does a texture get rotated if it's got all this texture data in the middle?
The way I learned is by using the upper level built in Xna methods and using 'Reflector' to see inside those methods to see how they work.
To rotate the box, each of the four vertices needs to be transformed from where they were to: a number of degrees about a particular axis.
In Xna 2d the axis is always the Z axis and that axis always runs through the worlds origin, the top left corner of the screen in xna.
So to rotate your four rectangle vertices in xna, you would do something like this:
foreach(Vector2 vert in vertices)
{
vert = Vector2.Transform(vert, Matrix.CreateRotationZ(someRadians));
}
This gets the vertices to rotate (orbit) the top left corner of the screen.
In order to have the box rotate in place, you would first move the box to the top left corner of the screen , rotate it a bit, then move it back. All this happens in a single frame so all the user sees is the rectangle rotating in place. There are many ways to do that in code but here is my favorite:
// assumes you know the center of the rectangle's x & y as a Vector2 'center'
foreach(Vector2 vert in vertices)
{
vert = Vector2.Transform(vert - center, Matrix.CreateRotationZ(someRadians)) + center;
}
Now if you were to reflect the "Matrix.CreateRotationZ" method, or the "Vector2.Transform" method, you would see the lines of code MS used to make that work. By working through them, you can learn the math behind more efficiently without so much trial and error.

Subdividing 3D mesh into arbitrarily sized pieces

I have a mesh defined by 4 points in 3D space. I need an algorithm which will subdivide that mesh into subdivisions of an arbitrary horizontal and vertical size. If the subdivision size isn't an exact divisor of the mesh size, the edge pieces will be smaller.
All of the subdivision algorithms I've found only subdivide meshes into exact powers of 2. Does anyone know of one that can do what I want?
Failing that, my thoughts about a possible implementation is to rotate the mesh so that it is flat on the Z axis, subdivide in 2D and then translate back into 3D. That's because my mind finds 3D hard ;) Any better suggestions?
Using C# if that makes any difference.
If you only have to work with a rectangle in 3D, then you simply need to obtain the two edge vectors and then you can generate all the interior points of the subdivided rectangle. For example, say your quad is defined by (x0,y0),...,(x3,y3), in order going around the quad. The edge vectors relative to point (x0,y0) are u = (x1-x0,y1-y0) and v = (x3-x0,y3-y0).
Now, you can generate all the interior points. Suppose you want M edges along the first edge, and N along the second, then the interior points are just
(x0,y0) + i/(M -1)* u + j/(N-1) * v
where i and j go from 0 .. M-1 and 0 .. N-1, respectively. You can figure out which vertices need to be connected together by just working it out on paper.
This kind of uniform subdivision works fine for triangular meshes as well, but each edge must have the same number of subdivided edges.
If you want to subdivide a general mesh, you can just do this to each individual triangle/quad. This kind of uniform subdivision results in poor quality meshes since all the original flat facets remain flat. If you want something more sophisticated, you can look at Loop subidivision, Catmull-Clark, etc. Those are typically constrained to power-of-two levels, but if you research the original formulations, I think you can derive subdivision stencils for non-power-of-two divisions. The theory behind that is a bit more involved than I can reasonably describe here.
Now that you've explained things a bit more clearly, I don't see your problem: you have a rectangle and you want to divide it up into rectangular tiles. So the mesh points you want are regularly spaced in both orthogonal directions. In 2D this is trivial, surely ? In 3D it's also trivial though the maths is a little trickier.
Off the top of my head I would guess that transforming from 3D to 2D (and aligning the rectangle with the coordinate axes at the same time) then calculating the mesh points, then transforming back to 3D is probably about as simple (and CPU-time consuming) as working it all out in 3D in the first place.
Yes, using C# means that I'm not able to propose a code to help you.
Comment or edit you question if I've missed the point.

How To Produce A 2D Plane Cut from a 3D Image

I would like to write a C# program that generates a 2D image from a rendered 3D object(s) by "slicing" the 3D object or through a cut-plane. The desired output of the 2D image should be data that can be displayed using a CAD. For example:
A 3D image is defined by its vertices, these vertices is contained within Point3DList(). A method is then called taking Point3DList as its parameter e.g: Cut2D(Point3DList).The method then generates the 2D vertices and saved it inside Point2DList() and these vertices can be read through a CAD program which display it in 2D form.
My question therefore is whether there is a previous implementation of this in C#(.NET compatible) or is there any suggestion on third-party components/algorithms to solve this problem.
Thanks in advance.
You pose an interesting question, in part, by not including a full definition of a 3D shape. You need to specify either the vertices and edges, or an algorithm to obtain the edges from the vertex list. Since an algorithm to obtain the edges from the vertex list devolves into specifying the vertices and edges, I will only cover that case here. My description also works best when the vertices and edges are transformed into a list of flat polygons. To break a vertex list down into polygons, you have to find cycles in the undirected graph that is created by the vertices and edges. For a triangular polygon with vertices A, B, and C you will end up with edges AB, BC, and AC.
The easiest algorithm that I can think of is:
Transform all points so that your 2D plane where the Z axis is 0. (rotate, twist, and move as required to transform the desired 2D plane to line up with the XY plane where Z=0).
For each flat polygon:
a. For each edge, check to see if the vertices have opposite sign on the Z axis (or if one is 0). If Z0 * Z1 <= 0 then this is the case
b. Use the definition of a line and solve for the point where Z=0. This will give you the X,Y of the intersection.
c. You now have a dot, line, or polygon that represents the intersection of your the original flat polygon from step 1 intersecting the 2D plane.
d. Fill in the polygon formed by the shapes (if desired). If your 2D rendering package will not create a polygon from the list of vertices,you need to start rendering pixels using scanlines.
Each of the individual algorithms should be in "Algorithms in C" or similar.
Graphics programs can be quite rewarding when they start to work.
Have Fun,
Jacob
This is more opengl specific rather than c# specific, but what i'd do:
Rotate and transform by a 3d matrix, so that the 'slice' you want is 1 metre in 'front' of the camera.
Then set the near and far horizon limits to 1m and 1.001m, respectively.
-update- Are you even using opengl? If not, you could perform your matrix arithmetic yourself somehow.
It sounds like you want to get the 2D representation of the points of intersection of a plane with a three-dimensional surface or object. While I don't know the algorithm to produce such a thing off hand (I have done very little with 3D modeling applications), I think that is what you are asking about.
I encountered such an algorithm a number of years ago in either a Graphics Gems or GPU Gems or similar book. I could not find anything through a few Bing searches, but hopefully this will give you some ideas.
if its a 3d texture cant you just specify 3d tex coords (into the texture) for each vertex of a quad? wouldnt that auto-interpolate the texels?
If you are looking for a 3rd party implementation, maybe you should explore Coin3d. Capable of such things as you require, though I am not sure of its exact database format or input requirements. I find your description lacking in that you do not specify the direction from which you want to project the 3d image on to a 2d plane.

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