Isometric scene - how? - ios

I programmed a simple 2d app/ game.I just noticed, that an isometric scene instead of the 2d one would look gorgeous . I did not use any SpriteKit, etc. , it's just a simple single-view-app.
Now I draw some nice isometric vectors of e.g. a petrol station, which I would love to use instead of the plain 2D-images. For sure I can just use them as an imageview. But my idea was that I may animate driving cars in straight ways, so that they seem to be 3D (isometric), but are just images moving along a given path. What is the best way to do this? Can I use my isometric image as a Gamescene (never used)?
Greetings!

If you’ve been doing without SpriteKit so far, I don’t see any need to use it now. Keep them as UIImageViews, and animate their positions normally, just make sure that the point you move them to makes sense, so as not to break the illusion.
You can open up your image in Preview, click and drag along it’s direction to make a rectangular selection along that direction, and use the width and height of that box to make a ratio, like 20:25, which then simplifies to 4:5. Meaning for every 4 points it moves along x-axis, it should move 5 points along y-axis. Then store this ratio as a CGPoint somewhere in your code, note that all your isometric images should give you this same ratio.
Then you could make an abstraction that moves an imageview x points along its direction, using that ratio. Say you want to move it 100 points along its direction, and say the ratio is 4:5. The ratio is a triangle of width 4, height 5. You use a^2=b^2+c^2 to calculate the hypotenuse of that triangle. Then find a k such that ck=100. Then multiply a and b by that k to give you your delta x and delta y. Apply those deltas to its current position and you have the final position to animate to, which will be 100 points along its direction.

Related

Finding point height on a cup using OpenCV

Suppose that I want to find the 3D position of a cup with its rotation, with image input like this (this cup can be rotated to point in any direction):
Given that I have a bunch of 2D points specifying the top circle and bottom circle like the following image. (Let's assume that these points are given by a person drawing the lines around the cup, so it won't be very accurate. Ellipse fitting or SolvePnP might be needed to recover a good approximation. And the bottom circle is not a complete circle, it's just part of a circle. Sometimes the top part will be occluded as well so we cannot rely that there will be a complete circle)
I also know the physical radius of the top and bottom circle, and the distance between them by using a ruler to measure them beforehand.
I want to find the complete 2 circle like following image (I think I need to find the position of the cup and its up direction before I could project the complete circles):
Let's say that my ultimate goal is to be able to find the closest 2D top point and closest 2D bottom point, given a 2D point on the side of the cup, like the following image:
A point can also be inside of the cup, like so:
Let's define distance(a, b) as a function that find euclidean distance from point a and point b in pixel units.
From that I would be able to calculate the distance(side point, bottom point) / distance(top point, bottom point) which will be a scale number from 0 to 1, if I multiply this number to the physical height of the cup measured by the ruler, then I will know how high the point is from the bottom of the cup in metric unit.
What is the method I can use to find the corresponding top and bottom point given point on the side, so that I can finally find out the height of the point from the bottom of the cup?
I'm thinking of using PnP to solve this but my points do not have correct IDs associated with them. And I don't want to know the exact rotation of the cup, I only want to know the up direction of the cup.
I also think that fitting the ellipse might help somewhat, but maybe it's not the best because the circle is not complete.
If you have any suggestions, please tell me how to obtain the point height from the bottom of the cup.
Given the accuracy issues, I don't think it is worth performing a 3D reconstruction of the cone.
I would perform a "standard" ellipse fit on the top outline, which is the most accurate, then a constrained one on the bottom, knowing the position of the vertical axis. After reduction of the coordinates, the bottom ellipse can be written as
x²/a² + (y - h)²/b² = 1
which can be solved by least-squares.
Note that it could be advantageous to ask the user to point at the endpoints of the straight edges at the bottom, plus the lowest point, instead of the whole curve.
Solving for the closest top and bottom points is a pure 2D problem (draw the line through the given point and the intersection of the sides, and find the intersection points with the ellipse.

how to find orientation of a picture with delphi

I need to find orientation of corn pictures (as examples below) they have different angles to right or left. I need to turn them upside (90 degree angle with their normal) (when they look like a water drop)
Is there any way I can do it easily?
As starting point - find image moments (and Hu moments for complex forms like pear). From the link:
Information about image orientation can be derived by first using the
second order central moments to construct a covariance matrix.
I suspect that usage of some image processing library like OpenCV could give more reliable results in common case
From the OP I got the impression you a rookie in this so I stick to something simple:
compute bounding box of image
simple enough go through all pixels and remember min,max of x,y coordinates of non background pixels
compute critical dimensions
Just cast few lines through the bounding box computing the red points positions. So select the start points I choose 25%,50%,75% of height. First start from left and stop on first non background pixel. Then start from right and stop on first non background pixel.
axis aligned position
start rotating the image with some step remember/stop on position where the red dots are symmetric so they are almost the same distance from left and from right. Also the bounding box has maximal height and minimal width in axis aligned position so you can also exploit that instead ...
determine the position
You got 4 options if I call the distance l0,l1,l2,r0,r1,r2
l means from left, r means from right
0 is upper (bluish) line, 1 middle, 2 bottom
then you wanted position is if (l0==r0)>=(l1==r1)>=(l2==r2) and bounding box is bigger in y axis then in x axis so rotate by 90 degrees until match is found or determine the orientation directly from distances and rotate just once ...
[Notes]
You will need accessing pixels of image so I strongly recommend to use Graphics::TBitmap from VCL. Look here gfx in C specially the section GDI Bitmap and also at this finding horizon on high altitude photo might help a bit.
I use C++ and VCL so you have to translate to Pascal but the VCL stuff is the same...

iOS: CGPath Line Drawing with dynamic width

I want to draw a line with dynamic width as shown in attached picture. What should be the best approach for this. ?
Updated:
My task is to draw line on finger move. And the line width is changes as speed of swipe is change. both (Line width and finger swipe speed) are directly proportional .
As the image you posted doesn't has any consistent height-width proportion to calculate and change, i doubt this cannot be achieved.
In other solution you can draw a line of fixed pixel say 2 pixel and based on drawn length inflate the width if line till center and then again start deflate from center point to end point.
You need to see the difference between x coordinates otherwise if a sine wave is drawn with high nodes the line width will overlap each other.
Edited : This link might be of your interest then.You can modify it according to your need, its in cocos2d.
There is no direct support for variable thickness curves in iOS (or Mac OS for that matter.) The cocos2d project looks like a good approach.
There is also no support for soft-edged curves who's edges are feathered to transparent. I've thought about implementing a similar approach to the one outlined in the Cocos link using OpenGL. This would be a good application for a vertex shader, since it would take advantage of the parallel vertex processing and vector math available in shaders.
Take a look at this article Smooth Freehand Drawing. It might be helpfull.
You can manipulate with control points of
[path addCurveToPoint:pts[3] controlPoint1:pts[1] controlPoint2:pts[2]];
and fill the area between two bezierPaths. I am not sure if it will work, but you can try if you dont find anything else.

XNA rotation over given vector

I'm newbie in XNA, so sorry about the simple question, but I can't find any solution.
I've got simple model (similar to flat cuboid), which I cannot change (model itself). I would like to create rotate animation. In this particular problem, my model is just a cover of piano. However, the axis over which I'm going to rotate is covered by cover's median. As a result, my model is rotating like a turbine, instead of opening and closing.
I would like to rotate my object over given "line". I found Matrix.CreateLookAt(currentPosition, dstPosition, Vector.Up); method, but still don't know how o combine rotation with such matrix.
Matrix.CreateLookAt is meant for use in a camera, not for manipulating models (although I'm sure some clever individuals who understand what sort of matrix it creates have done so).
What you are wanting to do is rotate your model around an arbitrary axis in space. It's not an animation (those are created in 3D modeling software, not the game), it's a transformation. Transformations are methods by which you can move, rotate and scale a model, and are obviously the crux of 3D game graphics.
For your problem, you want to rotate this flat piece around its edge, yes? To do this, you will combine translation and axis rotation.
First, you want to move the model so the edge you want to rotate around intersects with the origin. So, if the edge was a straight line in the Z direction, it would be perfectly aligned with the Z axis and intersecting 0,0,0. To do this you will need to know the dimensions of your model. Once you have those, create a Matrix:
Matrix originTranslation = Matrix.CreateTranslation(new Vector3(-modelWidth / 2f, 0, 0))
(This assumes a square model. Manipulate the Vector3 until the edge you want is intersecting the origin)
Now, we want to do the rotating. This depends on the angle of your edge. If your model is a square and thus the edge is straight forward in the Z direction, we can just rotate around Vector3.Forward. However, if your edge is angled (as I imagine a piano cover to be), you will have to determine the angle yourself and create a Unit Vector with that same angle. Now you will create another Matrix:
Matrix axisRotation = Matrix.CreateFromAxisAngle(myAxis, rotation)
where myAxis is the unit vector which represents the angle of the edge, and rotation is a float for the number of radians to rotate.
That last bit is the key to your 'animation'. What you are going to want to do is vary that float amount depending on how much time has passed to create an 'animation' of the piano cover opening over time. Of course you will want to clamp it at an upper value, or your cover will just keep rotating.
Now, in order to actually transform your cover model, you must multiply its world matrix by the two above matrices, in order.
pianoCover.World *= originTranslation * axisRotation;
then if you wish you can translate the cover back so that its center is at the origin (by multiplying by a Transform Matrix with the Vector3 values negative of what you first had them), and then subsequently translate your cover to wherever it needs to be in space using another Transform Matrix to that point.
So, note how matrices are used in 3D games. A matrix is created using the appropriate Matrix method in order to create qualities which you desire (translation, rotation around and axis, scale, etc). You make a matrix for each of these properties. Then you multiply them in a specific order (order matters in matrix multiplication) to transform your model as you wish. Often, as seen here, these transformations are intermediate in order to get the desired effect (we could not simply move the cover to where we wanted it then rotate it around its edge; we had to move the edge to the origin, rotate, move it back, etc).
Working with matrices in 3D is pretty tough. In fact, I may not have gotten all that right (I hope by now I know that well enough, but...). The more practice you get, the better you can judge how to perform tasks like this. I would recommend reading tutorials on the subject. Any tutorial that covers 3D in XNA will have this topic.
In closing, though, if you know 3D Modeling software well enough, I would probably suggest you just make an actual animation of a piano and cover opening and closing and use that animated model in your game, instead of using models for both the piano and cover and trying to keep them together.

What is this rotation behavior in XNA?

I am just starting out in XNA and have a question about rotation. When you multiply a vector by a rotation matrix in XNA, it goes counter-clockwise. This I understand.
However, let me give you an example of what I don't get. Let's say I load a random art asset into the pipeline. I then create some variable to increment every frame by 2 radians when the update method runs(testRot += 0.034906585f). The main thing of my confusion is, the asset rotates clockwise in this screen space. This confuses me as a rotation matrix will rotate a vector counter-clockwise.
One other thing, when I specify where my position vector is, as well as my origin, I understand that I am rotating about the origin. Am I to assume that there are perpendicular axis passing through this asset's origin as well? If so, where does rotation start from? In other words, am I starting rotation from the top of the Y-axis or the x-axis?
The XNA SpriteBatch works in Client Space. Where "up" is Y-, not Y+ (as in Cartesian space, projection space, and what most people usually select for their world space). This makes the rotation appear as clockwise (not counter-clockwise as it would in Cartesian space). The actual coordinates the rotation is producing are the same.
Rotations are relative, so they don't really "start" from any specified position.
If you are using maths functions like sin or cos or atan2, then absolute angles always start from the X+ axis as zero radians, and the positive rotation direction rotates towards Y+.
The order of operations of SpriteBatch looks something like this:
Sprite starts as a quad with the top-left corner at (0,0), its size being the same as its texture size (or SourceRectangle).
Translate the sprite back by its origin (thus placing its origin at (0,0)).
Scale the sprite
Rotate the sprite
Translate the sprite by its position
Apply the matrix from SpriteBatch.Begin
This places the sprite in Client Space.
Finally a matrix is applied to each batch to transform that Client Space into the Projection Space used by the GPU. (Projection space is from (-1,-1) at the bottom left of the viewport, to (1,1) in the top right.)
Since you are new to XNA, allow me to introduce a library that will greatly help you out while you learn. It is called XNA Debug Terminal and is an open source project that allows you to run arbitrary code during runtime. So you can see if your variables have the value you expect. All this happens in a terminal display on top of your game and without pausing your game. It can be downloaded at http://www.protohacks.net/xna_debug_terminal
It is free and very easy to setup so you really have nothing to lose.

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