glossy reflection in ray tracing - graphics

I am doing a project about ray tracing, right now I can do some basic rendering.
The image below have:
mirror reflection,
refraction,
texture mapping
and shadow.
I am trying to do the glossy reflection, so far this is what I am getting.
Could anyone tell me if there is any problem in this glossy reflection image?
In comparison, the image below is from the mirror reflection
This is my code about glossy reflection, basically, once a primary ray intersect with an object.
From this intersection, it will randomly shot another 80 rays, and take the average of this 80 rays color. The problem I am having with this code is the magnitude of x and y, I have to divide them by some value, in this case 16, such that the glossy reflect ray wouldn't be too random. Is there anything wrong with this logic?
Colour c(0, 0, 0);
for (int i = 0; i < 80; i++) {
Ray3D testRay;
double a = rand() / (double) RAND_MAX;
double b = rand() / (double) RAND_MAX;
double theta = acos(pow((1 - a), ray.intersection.mat->reflectivity));
double phi = 2 * M_PI * b;
double x = sin(phi) * cos(theta)/16;
double y = sin(phi) * sin(theta)/16;
double z = cos(phi);
Vector3D u = reflect.dir.cross(ray.intersection.normal);
Vector3D v = reflect.dir.cross(u);
testRay.dir = x * u + y * v + reflect.dir;
testRay.dir.normalize();
testRay.origin = reflect.origin;
testRay.nbounces = reflect.nbounces;
c = c + (ray.intersection.mat->reflectivity)*shadeRay(testRay);
}
col = col + c / 80;

Apart from the hard coded constants which are never great when coding, there is a more subtle issue, although your images overall look good.
Monte-Carlo integration consists in summing the integrand divided by the probability density function (pdf) that generated these samples. There are thus two problems in your code:
you haven't divided by the pdf although you seem to have used a pdf for Phong models (if I recognized it well ; at least it is not a uniform pdf)
you have further scaled your x and y components by 1./16. for apparently no reason which further changes your pdf.
The idea is that if you are able to sample your rays exactly according to Phong's model times the cosine law then you don't even have to multiply your integrand by the BRDF. In practice, there are no exact formula that allow to sample exactly a BRDF (apart from Lambertian ones), so you need to compute:
pixel value = sum BRDF*cosine*incoming_light / pdf
which mostly cancels out if BRDF*cosine = pdf.
Of course, your images overall look good, so if you're not interested in physical plausibility, that may as well be good.
A good source about the various pdfs used in computer graphics and Monte-Carlo integration (with the appropriate formulas) is the Global Illumination Compendium by Philip Dutré.

Related

Shading with squared falloff always makes everything black

I have recently tried to change the current way I calculate diffuse lighting in my RayTracer. It used to be calculated like this:
float lambert = (light_ray_dir * normal) * coef;
red += lambert * current.color.red * mat.kd.red;
green += lambert * current.color.green * mat.kd.green;
blue += lambert * current.color.blue * mat.kd.blue;
where coef is an attenuation coefficient that starts at 1 for each pixel and is then attenuated for each reflected ray that is generated by this line:
coef *= mat.reflection;
This worked well.
But I decided to try something more realistic and implemented this:
float squared_attenuation = LIGHT_FALLOFF * lenght;
light_intensity.setX ((current.color.red /*INTENSITY*/)/ squared_attenuation);
light_intensity.setY ((current.color.green /*INTENSITY*/)/ squared_attenuation);
light_intensity.setZ ((current.color.blue /*INTENSITY*/)/ squared_attenuation);
red += ALBEDO * light_intensity.getX() * lambert * mat.kd.red;
green += ALBEDO * light_intensity.getY() * lambert * mat.kd.green;
blue += ALBEDO * light_intensity.getZ() * lambert * mat.kd.blue;
where LIGHT_FALLOFF it is a constant value:
#define LIGHT_FALLOFF M_PI * 4
and length it is the length of the vector that goes from the point light center to the intersect point:
inline float normalize_return_lenght () {
float lenght = sqrtf (x*x + y*y + z*z);
float inv_length = 1/lenght;
x = x * inv_length, y = y * inv_length, z = z * inv_length;
return lenght;
}
float lenght = light_ray_dir.normalize_return_lenght ();
The problem is that all this is generating nothing more than a black screen! The main culprit is the length that goes as the divisor in the light_intensity.set. It makes the final color values being some value ^ -5. However, even if I replace it by one (ruining my goal of a realistic light attenuation), I still get color values to close to zero still, hence a black image.
I tried to add another light_sources closer to the objects, however the fact that the models that shall be shaded are made of multiple polygons with different coordinates, make hard to determine a goodl ocation for them.
So I ask. It seems normal to you that this is happening or it seems a bug? For me theory, does not seems strange for me, since the attenuation is quadratic.
Is does not seem, there is a some hint as to where to place the light sources, or to anything as can get an image that is not all black?
Thanks for reading all this!
P.S: Intensity is commented out because on the example that I used to do my code, it was one
So you are assuming that the light has a luminosity of "1" ?
How far away is your light?
If your light is - say - 10 units away, then they contribution from the light will be 1/10, or a very small number. This is probably why your image is dark.
You need to have quite large numbers for your light intensity if you are going to do this. In one of my scenes, I have a light that is about 1000 units away (pretending to be the Sun) and the intensity is 380000!!
Another thing ... to simulate reality, you should be using 1 / length^2. The light intensity falls off with the square of distance, not just with distance.
Good luck!

Un/pack additional set of UV coordinates into a 32bit RGBA field

I'm modding a game called Mount&Blade, currently trying to implement lightmapping through custom shaders.
As the in-game format doesn't allows more than one UV map per model and I need to carry the info of a second, non-overlapping parametrization somewhere, a field of four uints (RGBA, used for per-vertex coloring) is my only possibility.
At first thought about just using U,V=R,G but the precision isn't good enough.
Now I'm trying to encode them with the maximum precision available, using two fields (16bit) per coordinate. Snip of my Python exporter:
def decompose(a):
a=int(a*0xffff) #fill the entire range to get the maximum precision
aa =(a&0xff00)>>8 #decompose the first half and save it as an 8bit uint
ab =(a&0x00ff) #decompose the second half
return aa,ab
def compose(na,nb):
return (na<<8|nb)/0xffff
I'd like to know how to do the second part (composing, or unpacking it) in HLSL (DX9, shader model 2.0). Here's my try, close, but doesn't works:
//compose UV from n=(na<<8|nb)/0xffff
float2 thingie = float2(
float( ((In.Color.r*255.f)*256.f)+
(In.Color.g*255.f) )/65535.f,
float( ((In.Color.b*255.f)*256.f)+
(In.Color.w*255.f) )/65535.f
);
//sample the lightmap at that position
Output.RGBColor = tex2D(MeshTextureSamplerHQ, thingie);
Any suggestion or ingenious alternative is welcome.
Remember to normalize aa and ab after you decompose a.
Something like this:
(u1, u2) = decompose(u)
(v1, v2) = decompose(v)
color.r = float(u1) / 255.f
color.g = float(u2) / 255.f
color.b = float(v1) / 255.f
color.a = float(v2) / 255.f
The pixel shader:
float2 texc;
texc.x = (In.Color.r * 256.f + In.Color.g) / 257.f;
texc.y = (In.Color.b * 256.f + In.Color.a) / 257.f;

centroid of contour/object in opencv in c?

is there some good and better way to find centroid of contour in opencv, without using built in functions?
While Sonaten's answer is perfectly correct, there is a simple way to do it: Use the dedicated opencv function for that: moments()
http://opencv.itseez.com/modules/imgproc/doc/structural_analysis_and_shape_descriptors.html?highlight=moments#moments
It does not only returns the centroid, but some more statistics about your shape. And you can send it a contour or a raster shape (binary image), whatever best fits your need.
EDIT
example (modified) from "Learning OpenCV", by gary bradsky
CvMoments moments;
double M00, M01, M10;
cvMoments(contour,&moments);
M00 = cvGetSpatialMoment(&moments,0,0);
M10 = cvGetSpatialMoment(&moments,1,0);
M01 = cvGetSpatialMoment(&moments,0,1);
centers[i].x = (int)(M10/M00);
centers[i].y = (int)(M01/M00);
What you get in your current piece of code is of course the centroid of your bounding box.
"If you have a bunch of points(2d vectors), you should be able to get the centroid by averaging those points: create a point to add all the other points' positions into and then divide the components of that point with accumulated positions by the total number of points." - George Profenza mentions
This is indeed the right approach for the exact centroid of any given object in two-dimentionalspace.
On wikipedia we have some general forms for finding the centroid of an object.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centroid
Personally, I would ask myself what I needed from this program. Do I want a thorough but performance heavy operation, or do I want to make some approximations? I might even be able to find an OpenCV function that deals with this correct and efficiently.
Don't have a working example, so I'm writing this in pseudocode on a simple 5 pixel example on a thorough method.
x_centroid = (pixel1_x + pixel2_x + pixel3_x + pixel4_x +pixel5_x)/5
y_centroid = (pixel1_y + pixel2_y + pixel3_y + pixel4_y +pixel5_y)/5
centroidPoint(x_centroid, y_centroid)
Looped for x pixels
Loop j times *sample (for (int i=0, i < j, i++))*
{
x_centroid = pixel[j]_x + x_centroid
y_centroid = pixel[j]_x + x_centroid
}
x_centroid = x_centroid/j
y_centroid = y_centroid/j
centroidPoint(x_centroid, y_centroid)
Essentially, you have the vector contours of the type
vector<vector<point>>
in OpenCV 2.3. I believe you have something similar in earlier versions, and you should be able to go through each blob on your picture with the first index of this "double vector", and go through each pixel in the inner vector.
Here is a link to documentation on the contour function
http://opencv.itseez.com/modules/imgproc/doc/structural_analysis_and_shape_descriptors.html?highlight=contours#cv.DrawContours
note: you've tagged your question as c++ visual. I'd suggest that you use the c++ syntax in OpenCV 2.3 instead of c. The first and good reason to use 2.3 is that it is more class based, which in this case means that the class Mat (instead of IplImage) does leak memory. One does not have to write destroy commands all the live long day :)
I hope this shed some light on your problem. Enjoy.
I've used Joseph O'Rourke excellent polygon centroid algorithm to great success.
See http://maven.smith.edu/~orourke/Code/centroid.c
Essentially:
For each point in the contour, find the triangle area from the current index polygon xy to the next 2 polygon xy points e.g.: Math.Abs(((X1 - X0) * (Y2 - Y0) - (X2 - X0) * (Y1 - Y0)) / 2)
Add this triangle area to a list TriAreas
Sum the triangle area, and store in SumT
Find the centroid CTx and CTy from this current triangle: CTx = (X0 + X1 + X2) / 3 and CTy = (Y0 + Y1 + Y2) / 3;
Store these 2 centroid values in 2 other lists CTxs CTys.
Finally after performing this with all points in the contour, find the contours centroid x and y using the 2 triangle x and y lists in 5 which is a weighted sum of signed triangle areas, weighted by the centroid of each triangle:
for (Int32 Index = 0; Index < CTxs.Count; Index++)
{
CentroidPointRet.X += CTxs[Index] * (TriAreas[Index] / SumT);
}
// now find centroid Y value
for (Int32 Index = 0; Index < CTys.Count; Index++)
{
CentroidPointRet.Y += CTys[Index] * (TriAreas[Index] / SumT);
}

Why won't my raytracer recreate the "mount" scene?

I'm trying to render the "mount" scene from Eric Haines' Standard Procedural Database (SPD), but the refraction part just doesn't want to co-operate. I've tried everything I can think of to fix it.
This one is my render (with Watt's formula):
(source: philosoraptor.co.za)
This is my render using the "normal" formula:
(source: philosoraptor.co.za)
And this one is the correct render:
(source: philosoraptor.co.za)
As you can see, there are only a couple of errors, mostly around the poles of the spheres. This makes me think that refraction, or some precision error is to blame.
Please note that there are actually 4 spheres in the scene, their NFF definitions (s x_coord y_coord z_coord radius) are:
s -0.8 0.8 1.20821 0.17
s -0.661196 0.661196 0.930598 0.17
s -0.749194 0.98961 0.930598 0.17
s -0.98961 0.749194 0.930598 0.17
That is, there is a fourth sphere behind the more obvious three in the foreground. It can be seen in the gap left between these three spheres.
Here is a picture of that fourth sphere alone:
(source: philosoraptor.co.za)
And here is a picture of the first sphere alone:
(source: philosoraptor.co.za)
You'll notice that many of the oddities present in both my version and the correct version is missing. We can conclude that these effects are the result of interactions between the spheres, the question is which interactions?
What am I doing wrong? Below are some of the potential errors I've already considered:
Refraction vector formula.
As far as I can tell, this is correct. It's the same formula used by several websites and I verified the derivation personally. Here's how I calculate it:
double sinI2 = eta * eta * (1.0f - cosI * cosI);
Vector transmit = (v * eta) + (n * (eta * cosI - sqrt(1.0f - sinI2)));
transmit = transmit.normalise();
I found an alternate formula in 3D Computer Graphics, 3rd Ed by Alan Watt. It gives a closer approximation to the correct image:
double etaSq = eta * eta;
double sinI2 = etaSq * (1.0f - cosI * cosI);
Vector transmit = (v * eta) + (n * (eta * cosI - (sqrt(1.0f - sinI2) / etaSq)));
transmit = transmit.normalise();
The only difference is that I'm dividing by eta^2 at the end.
Total internal reflection.
I tested for this, using the following conditional before the rest of my intersection code:
if (sinI2 <= 1)
Calculation of eta.
I use a stack-like approach for this problem:
/* Entering object. */
if (r.normal.dot(r.dir) < 0)
{
double eta1 = r.iorStack.back();
double eta2 = m.ior;
eta = eta1 / eta2;
r.iorStack.push_back(eta2);
}
/* Exiting object. */
else
{
double eta1 = r.iorStack.back();
r.iorStack.pop_back();
double eta2 = r.iorStack.back();
eta = eta1 / eta2;
}
As you can see, this stores the previous objects that contained this ray in a stack. When exiting the code pops the current IOR off the stack and uses that, along with the IOR under it to compute eta. As far as I know this is the most correct way to do it.
This works for nested transmitting objects. However, it breaks down for intersecting transmitting objects. The problem here is that you need to define the IOR for the intersection independently, which the NFF file format does not do. It's unclear then, what the "correct" course of action is.
Moving the new ray's origin.
The new ray's origin has to be moved slightly along the transmitted path so that it doesn't intersect at the same point as the previous one.
p = r.intersection + transmit * 0.0001f;
p += transmit * 0.01f;
I've tried making this value smaller (0.001f) and (0.0001f) but that makes the spheres appear solid. I guess these values don't move the rays far enough away from the previous intersection point.
EDIT: The problem here was that the reflection code was doing the same thing. So when an object is reflective as well as refractive then the origin of the ray ends up in completely the wrong place.
Amount of ray bounces.
I've artificially limited the amount of ray bounces to 4. I tested raising this limit to 10, but that didn't fix the problem.
Normals.
I'm pretty sure I'm calculating the normals of the spheres correctly. I take the intersection point, subtract the centre of the sphere and divide by the radius.
Just a guess based on doing a image diff (and without reading the rest of your question). The problem looks to me to be the refraction on the back side of the sphere. You might be:
doing it backwards: e.g. reversing (or not reversing) the indexes of refraction.
missing it entirely?
One way to check for this would be to look at the mount through a cube that is almost facing the camera. If the refraction is correct, the picture should be offset slightly but otherwise un-altered. If it's not right, then the picture will seem slightly tilted.
So after more than I year, I finally figured out what was going on here. Clear minds and all that. I was completely off track with the formula. I'm instead using a formula by Heckbert now, which I am sure is correct because I proved it myself using geometry and discrete math.
Here's the correct vector calculation:
double c1 = v.dot(n) * -1;
double c1Sq = pow(c1, 2);
/* Heckbert's formula requires eta to be eta2 / eta1, so I have to flip it here. */
eta = 1 / eta;
double etaSq = pow(eta, 2);
if (etaSq + c1Sq >= 1)
{
Vector transmit = (v / eta) + (n / eta) * (c1 - sqrt(etaSq - 1 + c1Sq));
transmit = transmit.normalise();
...
}
else
{
/* Total internal reflection. */
}
In the code above, eta is eta1 (the IOR of the surface from which the ray is coming) over eta2 (the IOR of the destination surface), v is the incident ray and n is the normal.
There was another problem, which confused the problem some more. I had to flip the normal when exiting an object (which is obvious - I missed it because the other errors were obscuring it).
Lastly, my line of sight algorithm (to determine whether a surface is illuminated by a point light source) was not properly passing through transparent surfaces.
So now my images line up properly :)

Ball to Ball Collision - Detection and Handling

With the help of the Stack Overflow community I've written a pretty basic-but fun physics simulator.
You click and drag the mouse to launch a ball. It will bounce around and eventually stop on the "floor".
My next big feature I want to add in is ball to ball collision. The ball's movement is broken up into a x and y speed vector. I have gravity (small reduction of the y vector each step), I have friction (small reduction of both vectors each collision with a wall). The balls honestly move around in a surprisingly realistic way.
I guess my question has two parts:
What is the best method to detect ball to ball collision?
Do I just have an O(n^2) loop that iterates over each ball and checks every other ball to see if it's radius overlaps?
What equations do I use to handle the ball to ball collisions? Physics 101
How does it effect the two balls speed x/y vectors? What is the resulting direction the two balls head off in? How do I apply this to each ball?
Handling the collision detection of the "walls" and the resulting vector changes were easy but I see more complications with ball-ball collisions. With walls I simply had to take the negative of the appropriate x or y vector and off it would go in the correct direction. With balls I don't think it is that way.
Some quick clarifications: for simplicity I'm ok with a perfectly elastic collision for now, also all my balls have the same mass right now, but I might change that in the future.
Edit: Resources I have found useful
2d Ball physics with vectors: 2-Dimensional Collisions Without Trigonometry.pdf
2d Ball collision detection example: Adding Collision Detection
Success!
I have the ball collision detection and response working great!
Relevant code:
Collision Detection:
for (int i = 0; i < ballCount; i++)
{
for (int j = i + 1; j < ballCount; j++)
{
if (balls[i].colliding(balls[j]))
{
balls[i].resolveCollision(balls[j]);
}
}
}
This will check for collisions between every ball but skip redundant checks (if you have to check if ball 1 collides with ball 2 then you don't need to check if ball 2 collides with ball 1. Also, it skips checking for collisions with itself).
Then, in my ball class I have my colliding() and resolveCollision() methods:
public boolean colliding(Ball ball)
{
float xd = position.getX() - ball.position.getX();
float yd = position.getY() - ball.position.getY();
float sumRadius = getRadius() + ball.getRadius();
float sqrRadius = sumRadius * sumRadius;
float distSqr = (xd * xd) + (yd * yd);
if (distSqr <= sqrRadius)
{
return true;
}
return false;
}
public void resolveCollision(Ball ball)
{
// get the mtd
Vector2d delta = (position.subtract(ball.position));
float d = delta.getLength();
// minimum translation distance to push balls apart after intersecting
Vector2d mtd = delta.multiply(((getRadius() + ball.getRadius())-d)/d);
// resolve intersection --
// inverse mass quantities
float im1 = 1 / getMass();
float im2 = 1 / ball.getMass();
// push-pull them apart based off their mass
position = position.add(mtd.multiply(im1 / (im1 + im2)));
ball.position = ball.position.subtract(mtd.multiply(im2 / (im1 + im2)));
// impact speed
Vector2d v = (this.velocity.subtract(ball.velocity));
float vn = v.dot(mtd.normalize());
// sphere intersecting but moving away from each other already
if (vn > 0.0f) return;
// collision impulse
float i = (-(1.0f + Constants.restitution) * vn) / (im1 + im2);
Vector2d impulse = mtd.normalize().multiply(i);
// change in momentum
this.velocity = this.velocity.add(impulse.multiply(im1));
ball.velocity = ball.velocity.subtract(impulse.multiply(im2));
}
Source Code: Complete source for ball to ball collider.
If anyone has some suggestions for how to improve this basic physics simulator let me know! One thing I have yet to add is angular momentum so the balls will roll more realistically. Any other suggestions? Leave a comment!
To detect whether two balls collide, just check whether the distance between their centers is less than two times the radius. To do a perfectly elastic collision between the balls, you only need to worry about the component of the velocity that is in the direction of the collision. The other component (tangent to the collision) will stay the same for both balls. You can get the collision components by creating a unit vector pointing in the direction from one ball to the other, then taking the dot product with the velocity vectors of the balls. You can then plug these components into a 1D perfectly elastic collision equation.
Wikipedia has a pretty good summary of the whole process. For balls of any mass, the new velocities can be calculated using the equations (where v1 and v2 are the velocities after the collision, and u1, u2 are from before):
If the balls have the same mass then the velocities are simply switched. Here's some code I wrote which does something similar:
void Simulation::collide(Storage::Iterator a, Storage::Iterator b)
{
// Check whether there actually was a collision
if (a == b)
return;
Vector collision = a.position() - b.position();
double distance = collision.length();
if (distance == 0.0) { // hack to avoid div by zero
collision = Vector(1.0, 0.0);
distance = 1.0;
}
if (distance > 1.0)
return;
// Get the components of the velocity vectors which are parallel to the collision.
// The perpendicular component remains the same for both fish
collision = collision / distance;
double aci = a.velocity().dot(collision);
double bci = b.velocity().dot(collision);
// Solve for the new velocities using the 1-dimensional elastic collision equations.
// Turns out it's really simple when the masses are the same.
double acf = bci;
double bcf = aci;
// Replace the collision velocity components with the new ones
a.velocity() += (acf - aci) * collision;
b.velocity() += (bcf - bci) * collision;
}
As for efficiency, Ryan Fox is right, you should consider dividing up the region into sections, then doing collision detection within each section. Keep in mind that balls can collide with other balls on the boundaries of a section, so this may make your code much more complicated. Efficiency probably won't matter until you have several hundred balls though. For bonus points, you can run each section on a different core, or split up the processing of collisions within each section.
Well, years ago I made the program like you presented here.
There is one hidden problem (or many, depends on point of view):
If the speed of the ball is too
high, you can miss the collision.
And also, almost in 100% cases your new speeds will be wrong. Well, not speeds, but positions. You have to calculate new speeds precisely in the correct place. Otherwise you just shift balls on some small "error" amount, which is available from the previous discrete step.
The solution is obvious: you have to split the timestep so, that first you shift to correct place, then collide, then shift for the rest of the time you have.
You should use space partitioning to solve this problem.
Read up on
Binary Space Partitioning
and
Quadtrees
As a clarification to the suggestion by Ryan Fox to split the screen into regions, and only checking for collisions within regions...
e.g. split the play area up into a grid of squares (which will will arbitrarily say are of 1 unit length per side), and check for collisions within each grid square.
That's absolutely the correct solution. The only problem with it (as another poster pointed out) is that collisions across boundaries are a problem.
The solution to this is to overlay a second grid at a 0.5 unit vertical and horizontal offset to the first one.
Then, any collisions that would be across boundaries in the first grid (and hence not detected) will be within grid squares in the second grid. As long as you keep track of the collisions you've already handled (as there is likely to be some overlap) you don't have to worry about handling edge cases. All collisions will be within a grid square on one of the grids.
A good way of reducing the number of collision checks is to split the screen into different sections. You then only compare each ball to the balls in the same section.
One thing I see here to optimize.
While I do agree that the balls hit when the distance is the sum of their radii one should never actually calculate this distance! Rather, calculate it's square and work with it that way. There's no reason for that expensive square root operation.
Also, once you have found a collision you have to continue to evaluate collisions until no more remain. The problem is that the first one might cause others that have to be resolved before you get an accurate picture. Consider what happens if the ball hits a ball at the edge? The second ball hits the edge and immediately rebounds into the first ball. If you bang into a pile of balls in the corner you could have quite a few collisions that have to be resolved before you can iterate the next cycle.
As for the O(n^2), all you can do is minimize the cost of rejecting ones that miss:
1) A ball that is not moving can't hit anything. If there are a reasonable number of balls lying around on the floor this could save a lot of tests. (Note that you must still check if something hit the stationary ball.)
2) Something that might be worth doing: Divide the screen into a number of zones but the lines should be fuzzy--balls at the edge of a zone are listed as being in all the relevant (could be 4) zones. I would use a 4x4 grid, store the zones as bits. If an AND of the zones of two balls zones returns zero, end of test.
3) As I mentioned, don't do the square root.
I found an excellent page with information on collision detection and response in 2D.
http://www.metanetsoftware.com/technique.html (web.archive.org)
They try to explain how it's done from an academic point of view. They start with the simple object-to-object collision detection, and move on to collision response and how to scale it up.
Edit: Updated link
You have two easy ways to do this. Jay has covered the accurate way of checking from the center of the ball.
The easier way is to use a rectangle bounding box, set the size of your box to be 80% the size of the ball, and you'll simulate collision pretty well.
Add a method to your ball class:
public Rectangle getBoundingRect()
{
int ballHeight = (int)Ball.Height * 0.80f;
int ballWidth = (int)Ball.Width * 0.80f;
int x = Ball.X - ballWidth / 2;
int y = Ball.Y - ballHeight / 2;
return new Rectangle(x,y,ballHeight,ballWidth);
}
Then, in your loop:
// Checks every ball against every other ball.
// For best results, split it into quadrants like Ryan suggested.
// I didn't do that for simplicity here.
for (int i = 0; i < balls.count; i++)
{
Rectangle r1 = balls[i].getBoundingRect();
for (int k = 0; k < balls.count; k++)
{
if (balls[i] != balls[k])
{
Rectangle r2 = balls[k].getBoundingRect();
if (r1.Intersects(r2))
{
// balls[i] collided with balls[k]
}
}
}
}
I see it hinted here and there, but you could also do a faster calculation first, like, compare the bounding boxes for overlap, and THEN do a radius-based overlap if that first test passes.
The addition/difference math is much faster for a bounding box than all the trig for the radius, and most times, the bounding box test will dismiss the possibility of a collision. But if you then re-test with trig, you're getting the accurate results that you're seeking.
Yes, it's two tests, but it will be faster overall.
This KineticModel is an implementation of the cited approach in Java.
I implemented this code in JavaScript using the HTML Canvas element, and it produced wonderful simulations at 60 frames per second. I started the simulation off with a collection of a dozen balls at random positions and velocities. I found that at higher velocities, a glancing collision between a small ball and a much larger one caused the small ball to appear to STICK to the edge of the larger ball, and moved up to around 90 degrees around the larger ball before separating. (I wonder if anyone else observed this behavior.)
Some logging of the calculations showed that the Minimum Translation Distance in these cases was not large enough to prevent the same balls from colliding in the very next time step. I did some experimenting and found that I could solve this problem by scaling up the MTD based on the relative velocities:
dot_velocity = ball_1.velocity.dot(ball_2.velocity);
mtd_factor = 1. + 0.5 * Math.abs(dot_velocity * Math.sin(collision_angle));
mtd.multplyScalar(mtd_factor);
I verified that before and after this fix, the total kinetic energy was conserved for every collision. The 0.5 value in the mtd_factor was the approximately the minumum value found to always cause the balls to separate after a collision.
Although this fix introduces a small amount of error in the exact physics of the system, the tradeoff is that now very fast balls can be simulated in a browser without decreasing the time step size.
Improving the solution to detect circle with circle collision detection given within the question:
float dx = circle1.x - circle2.x,
dy = circle1.y - circle2.y,
r = circle1.r + circle2.r;
return (dx * dx + dy * dy <= r * r);
It avoids the unnecessary "if with two returns" and the use of more variables than necessary.
After some trial and error, I used this document's method for 2D collisions : https://www.vobarian.com/collisions/2dcollisions2.pdf
(that OP linked to)
I applied this within a JavaScript program using p5js, and it works perfectly. I had previously attempted to use trigonometrical equations and while they do work for specific collisions, I could not find one that worked for every collision no matter the angle at the which it happened.
The method explained in this document uses no trigonometrical functions whatsoever, it's just plain vector operations, I recommend this to anyone trying to implement ball to ball collision, trigonometrical functions in my experience are hard to generalize. I asked a Physicist at my university to show me how to do it and he told me not to bother with trigonometrical functions and showed me a method that is analogous to the one linked in the document.
NB : My masses are all equal, but this can be generalised to different masses using the equations presented in the document.
Here's my code for calculating the resulting speed vectors after collision :
//you just need a ball object with a speed and position vector.
class TBall {
constructor(x, y, vx, vy) {
this.r = [x, y];
this.v = [0, 0];
}
}
//throw two balls into this function and it'll update their speed vectors
//if they collide, you need to call this in your main loop for every pair of
//balls.
function collision(ball1, ball2) {
n = [ (ball1.r)[0] - (ball2.r)[0], (ball1.r)[1] - (ball2.r)[1] ];
un = [n[0] / vecNorm(n), n[1] / vecNorm(n) ] ;
ut = [ -un[1], un[0] ];
v1n = dotProd(un, (ball1.v));
v1t = dotProd(ut, (ball1.v) );
v2n = dotProd(un, (ball2.v) );
v2t = dotProd(ut, (ball2.v) );
v1t_p = v1t; v2t_p = v2t;
v1n_p = v2n; v2n_p = v1n;
v1n_pvec = [v1n_p * un[0], v1n_p * un[1] ];
v1t_pvec = [v1t_p * ut[0], v1t_p * ut[1] ];
v2n_pvec = [v2n_p * un[0], v2n_p * un[1] ];
v2t_pvec = [v2t_p * ut[0], v2t_p * ut[1] ];
ball1.v = vecSum(v1n_pvec, v1t_pvec); ball2.v = vecSum(v2n_pvec, v2t_pvec);
}
I would consider using a quadtree if you have a large number of balls. For deciding the direction of bounce, just use simple conservation of energy formulas based on the collision normal. Elasticity, weight, and velocity would make it a bit more realistic.
Here is a simple example that supports mass.
private void CollideBalls(Transform ball1, Transform ball2, ref Vector3 vel1, ref Vector3 vel2, float radius1, float radius2)
{
var vec = ball1.position - ball2.position;
float dis = vec.magnitude;
if (dis < radius1 + radius2)
{
var n = vec.normalized;
ReflectVelocity(ref vel1, ref vel2, ballMass1, ballMass2, n);
var c = Vector3.Lerp(ball1.position, ball2.position, radius1 / (radius1 + radius2));
ball1.position = c + (n * radius1);
ball2.position = c - (n * radius2);
}
}
public static void ReflectVelocity(ref Vector3 vel1, ref Vector3 vel2, float mass1, float mass2, Vector3 intersectionNormal)
{
float velImpact1 = Vector3.Dot(vel1, intersectionNormal);
float velImpact2 = Vector3.Dot(vel2, intersectionNormal);
float totalMass = mass1 + mass2;
float massTransfure1 = mass1 / totalMass;
float massTransfure2 = mass2 / totalMass;
vel1 += ((velImpact2 * massTransfure2) - (velImpact1 * massTransfure2)) * intersectionNormal;
vel2 += ((velImpact1 * massTransfure1) - (velImpact2 * massTransfure1)) * intersectionNormal;
}

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