Converting from Real world coordinate System to another - xna

I have issue I am tryin to sort.
So basically I have a coordinate system where +x = traveling East, +y is up, and +z is traveling North. Effectively I have taken Lat/Long and projected it to OSGB.
I have a list of points in this coordinate system, but when I render them they are flipped on one axis The Z(North) axis so my point list looks incorrect.This is because the rendering API has the +z axis running the other way.
I was thinking my solution to this could be, have all my objects/3d models/points etc drawn in my "Real World" coordinate system, then at the last moment before I render then apply a Scale Matrix (1,1,-1) to each of the world matrices so that the Z Axis is flipped on everything.
So if my real world projected coordinate is: 281852; 161.488; 655844
After I apply my "RealWorldToXNA" matrix, the point will be 281852; 161.488; -655844;
I will then apply the same thing to my camera so it renders from the correct position.
Will this work or am I missing something? I haven't done a lot of 3d maths lately and have suffered a bout of cerebral flatulence. Part of my brain thinks this will work, but another part thinks it shouldn't be so simple.

FYI I used the solution in my question - just tested it and it did in-fact work as expected.

Related

Aruco scales coordinates wrong

I am using the (newly released) ArUco 2.0.7 to track some markers.
The camera that I am using is mounted to the ceiling facing down, so I only need the x and y coordinates.
It can view an area of 2.6m by 1.5m. If I understand the documentation correctly, I supply the sidelength of the markers I'm using in an arbitrary unit, the output of the pose will be in the same unit.
So the markers have a sidelength of 19.5cm. As I want my result in meters, I have that value set to 0.195.
However, the results I obtain are not correct. If I place the markers right in the corners of the field of view of the camera, they are not at the corresponding expected x and y coordinates.
I am placing the global origin on one of the corners of the field of view, e.g. (0,0) is the bottom left corner. This is done by transforming all incoming positions into that markers coordinate system using the matrix transforms obtained by getRTMatrix().
Everything seems to be working, except the x and y coordinates are in a wrong unit or scaled. The rotation works perfectly.
Am I missing something? Or can I not expect a good accuracy? The error is significant, e.g. when it should be (2.6,1.5), it is displayed as (1.8, 1), which is roughly an error of 33%.
After some more thought I figured out that simply my camera was calibrated using a smaller distance from the calibration board to the lens than what I need for my use case.
This caused the distortion coefficients the be wrong, thus giving me a bogus scale.
I re-calibrated using the aruco_calibration tool and am now accurate to roughly 3 or 4 cm, which is good enough for me.

Recreate the 3D outlines of a City street in iOS SceneKit with OSM XML data

What is best strategy to recreate part of a street in iOS SceneKit using .osm XML data?
Please assume part of a street is offered in the OSM XML data and contains the necessary geopoints with latitude and longitude denoting the Nodes to describe the paths/footprints of 6 buildings (i.e. ground floor plans that line the side of a street).
Specifically, what's the best strategy to convert latitude and longitude Nodes in order to locate these building footprints/polygons on the ground floor in a scene within SceneKit iOS? (i.e. running through position 0,0,0)? Thank you.
Very roughly and briefly, based on my own experience with 3D map rendering:
Transform the XML data from lat/long to appropriate coordinates for a 2D map (that is, project it to a plane using a map projection, then apply a 2D affine transform to get it into screen pixel coordinates). Create a 2D map that's wider and taller than the actual screen, because of what's going to happen in step 2:
Using a 3D coordinate system with your map vertical (i.e., set all the Z coordinates to zero), rotate the map so that it reclines at an appropriate shallow angle, as if you're in an aeroplane looking down on it; the angle might be 30 degrees from horizontal. To rotate the map you'll need to create a 3D rotation matrix. The axis of rotation will be the X axis: that is, the horizontal line that is the bottom border of your 2D map. The rotation is exactly the same as what happens when you rotate your laptop screen away from you.
Supply the new 3D coordinates to your rendering system. I haven't used SceneKit but I had a quick look at the documentation and you can use any coordinate system you like, so you will be able to use one that is convenient for the process I have just described: something that uses units the size of a screen pixel at the viewing plane, with Y going upwards, X going right, and Z going away from the viewer.
One final caveat: if you want to add extrusions giving a rough approximation of the 3D building shapes (such data is available in OSM for some areas) note that my scheme requires the tops of buildings, and indeed anything above ground level, to have negative Z coordinates.
Pretty simple. First, convert Your CLLocationCoordinate2D to a MKMapPoint, which is exactly the same as a CGRect. Second, scale down the MKMapPoint by some arbitrary number so it fits in with how you want it on your scene graph, let's say by 200. Since scenekit's coordinate system is centered at (0,0), you'll need to make sure your location is correct. Then just create your scnvector3's with the x/y of he MKMapPoint, and you will be locked to coordinates.

Convert world to object coordinates

The iPhone gyroscope receives rotation data relative to some reference attitude and it doesn't change (unless multiplied.) Lets say I face the wall using my iPhone camera, and rotate 45 degrees left (roll += PI/4.)
Now, if I lift the phone towards the ceiling, both yaw and pitch change since the coordinate space is fixed (world coordinate space, doesn't move or rotate with the phone.) Is there a way to determine this angle (the one between the floor plane and the camera direction vector), roll, yaw and pitch given?
Edit: Instead of opening another question I'll try here. Luc's solution works. But how to get the other two angles of rotation? I've read the info on the posted link but it's been years since I studied linear algebra. This might be more math than a programming question, actually.
I don't really code for iPhone so I'll trust you on the "real world coordinates" frame.
In that case, you want the dot product between both z-axis' vectors. That'll give you the cosine of the angle you're looking for, pretty close thus. Since an angle between planes only really makes sense as a value between 0° and 90°, you actually have all the information you need in that cosine.
And there is no latex formatting here, otherwise I'd go into a bit more of detail, but read this page if you're interested, I'll just include the final result here, the rotation matrix for your three rotations :
Now the z-axis' vector of the horizontal plan is (0,0,1) (read this as a vertical vector though) and rotated with this matrix, you simply get its third column.
So we want to have the dot product between that third column and our (0,0,1) vector, so you get cos(β)cos(γ) which is cos(pitch)*cos(roll)
In conclusion, the angle between your plans is arccos(cos(pitch)*cos(roll)). This value will tell you how much your iPhone is inclined, not in which direction of course. But you can work that out from the values of the vector (rightmost column of the matrix) we spoke of.

XNA WorldMatrix and ViewMatrix

I have created a Camera class that allows me to move around a scene in first person. The camera has worked just fine until I decided to use it as a location to add something to the 3D world. What I am trying to do is add a cube to the world when I press a mouse button. I want to cube to eventually travel away from the camera, but for now I just want to create it right in front of it. Sometimes it works and sometimes it creates it to one side or the other. It all depends on how much I've rotated and translated the camera.
I am tryinng to find the vector in front of my camera by using the View Matrix like so:
Vector3 inFront = Camera.ViewMatrix.Forward;
I plan to use the vector to add some physics behind the cube and have it travel away from the camera. For now I am just wanting to get a correct Vector.
I know you normally draw thing in the world using the WorldMatrix, but I can't figure out how to convert my ViewMatrix into a WorldMatrix. Still learing :-)
What am I doing wrong?
-Scott
First of all, there is no real difference between a "World Matrix" and a "View Matrix", they are both transformation matrices and the distinction is somewhat arbitrary. Some systems even combine the two (OpenGL simply has a "ModelView" matrix).
Traditionally the "world matrix" is used to move individual models from "model space" to "world space". Then the "view matrix" is used to move all the models from world space into their relative positions in front of the camera (which, in effect, "moves the camera"). And finally the "Projection Matrix" converts the 3D positions into their 2D positions on the screen (generally with a perspective projection). Because they are matrices, they can be multiplied together into a single matrix that can transform points in a single step.
First of all, take a look at the properties of the Matrix struct.
What you also need to realise is that Matrix.Forward returns a Vector3. A Vector3 can represent either a position or a scalar and a direction. You need two of them to represent a position and a direction.
Now, my 3D matrix maths is a bit rusty, but I'm pretty sure that what you want is the Matrix.Translation as the position of the camera in world space. And Matrix.Forward as the forward direction of the camera in world space.
Unless your camera/view matrix is performing a scaling operation on the world (and really it shouldn't), then the Vector3 you get back from Matrix.Forward will have unit length - in other words just a direction (no scalar). Use this to give a direction to move your object in.
I assume you have to location of the camera. Have you tried something like this (I haven't done Matrix/Vector math in a few years so this might be off):
float scalar = 10; // how far away from the camera you want to move the object
Vector3 camPos = ???; // supplied from somewhere elese
Vector3 inFront = Camera.ViewMatrix.Forward;
Vector3 newPos = camPos + inFront * scalar;

DirectX having a sphere orbit a point at a given distance, over time

I'm trying to make a basic model of the solar system in Direct X. I want to have the planets orbit the sun and the moon orbit the planets. So I have the planet/star/moon which takes a pointer to it's parent position vector. From that, how would I be able to make the object orbit at a set speed?
So for example the moon would have a pointer to the earth's position vector and a distance to stay from the earth. I'd need the moon to orbit the earth over 24 hours (or any time frame, I'm sure I would be able to adjust that myself). Similarly the earth would have a pointer to the sun's position and would rotate around that over 365 days.
I just don't know how to work out how to work out the orbital position.
Try this thread for ideas:
Making an object orbit a fixed point in directx?
As an aside: Be warned graphics hardware uses single precision floats. Depending on the scales involved you may find you run out of precision quite quickly on something the scale of the solar system. If this happens don't forget you can sort object groups by z and then render them at a large distance but with full, local, Z-buffer precision. You then need to clear the Z0buffer and draw the next local group forward.

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