Spherical map transformation - svg

I'm using Raphael JS to display a scrollable, zoomable map of the world, which is working fine. But any 2D representation of a globe is going to be distorted. If possible I'd like to transform the map so that the top and bottom are pinched in, to make the map at least a little bit more representative of a globe. Is it possible to achieve such effects with Raphael's matrix, or by hacking deeper into it to insert a manual transformation?

You can't achieve this effect with Raphael's tranform (or SVG's native matrix transform). Raphael is an excellent vector drawing library, but trying to use maps on it is somewhat akin to using Illustrator when you should be using a GIS, posible but not ideal.
If you can afford to lose IE 8 =< support, d3.js is an SVG visualization library that supports geographic projections. Take a look at this demo http://mbostock.github.com/d3/talk/20111018/azimuthal.html
Otherwise, I'd recommend getting the source for a map with a projection more suited to your needs, such as this one http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:BlankMap-World6.svg. But then it would be more difficult to convert lon lat to pixels.

Related

render scalable textures in webgl from svg

I am working on a 2d fantasy map displayed in browser via WebGL. Here is what it looks like:
It is procedurally generated so you can move wherever you want but you can also zoom and unzoom without losing quality. I would like to add assets in some places, especially mountains when the altitude is high. I have those assets as vector images (.svg) so that you can still zoom in without losing quality. The thing is I have no idea how I could draw them on screen. I think I would need to convert those vectors to vertices of triangles but I am wondering if there is an automatic way to do it. I heard about something called SVGLoader but I think this is only for threejs and I am using webgl alone. What would you advise me to do?
edit: I just found https://github.com/MoeYc/svg-webgl-loader which looks interesting

Is there any code for an interactive plotting application for a two dimensional curves

Plotting packages offer a variety of methods for displaying data. Write an interactive plotting application for two dimensionsional curves. Your application should be able to allow the user to choose the mode (line strip or polyline display of the data, bar chart or pie charts), colours, and line styles.
You should start with the GUI editation like this:
Does anyone know of a low level (no frameworks) example of a drag & drop, re-order-able list?
and change it to your primitives (more points per primitive instead of one ... handle each point as (sub)object so you can change its position later).
Then just add tools like add object,del object,... For hand drawing tool use piece wise interpolation cubics
The grid can be done like this:
How to draw dynamic 2D grid that adjusts according to camera zoom: OpenGL
Mouse zooming/panning is also important
Zooming graphics based on current mouse position
Putting all above together into simple editor looks like this:
Using GPU for curve rendering might give you some nice speed and functionality boost:
Is it possible to express "t" variable from Cubic Bezier Curve equation?
Mouse selection of objects might be a speed problem if your scene contains too many objects so in such case its best to use index buffers where you can mouse select with pixel perfect precision for almost free in O(1):
OpenGL 3D-raypicking with high poly meshes
The example is for 3D , in 2D is much simpler ...
Also do not forget to implement save/load functionality to some vector file format. I recommend using SVG it might be complicated to start with it but you can quickly check it contents in any SVG viewer or browser also in notepad as its just a text file. If you use just basic path elements and ignore the rest of SVG features you will see the parsing and creating SVG is not that hard for example See these:
Get Vertices/Edges From BMP or SVG (C#)
Discrete probability distribution plot with given values
For really big datasets you might want to use spatial subdivision techniques (Bounding (Volume)Area Hierarchy, or Quad tree) to ease up the operations...
More in depth implementation details about 2D vector gfx editors depends on language, OS, gfx api and GUI api you using and task you are aiming for ...

Convert geographic coordinates into svg coordinates

I want to build a Node JS application that generates an SVG image from geographic coordinates it fetches from overpass.
I tried to implement that by just using the geographic coordinates as coordinates for SVG paths, but the result looks distorted (it should look like this):
I assume the problem is that the earth is actually a sphere and there needs to be done some math in order to get a correct map projection.
What is the actual problem here? Are there any existing algorithms or libraries to cope with that?
The math behind this is called map projection.
Many online maps use the Mercator projection. The OSM Wiki has example code in various languages. I'm sure you will find more libraries on the Internet.

Emulating a perspective rectangle on 2D

So, I'm currently developing a puzzle game of sorts, and I came upon something I'm not sure how to approach.
As you can see from the screenshot below, the text on the sides next to the main square is distorted along the diagonal of the quadrilateral. This is because this is not a screenshot of a 3D environment, but rather a 2D environment where the squares have been stretched in such a way that it looks like it's 3D.
I have tried using 3D perspective and changing depths, and while it solves the issue of the distorted sides, I was wondering if it's possible to fix this issue without doing 3D perspectives. Mainly because the current mesh transformation scheme took a while to get to, and converting that to something that works on 3D space is extra effort that might be avoidable.
I have a feeling this is unavoidable, but I'm curious if anyone knows a solution. I'm currently using OpenGL ES 1.
Probably not the answer you wanted, but I'd go with the 3d transformation because it will save you not only this distortion, but will simplify many other things down the road and give you opportunities to do nice effects.
What you are lacking in this scene is "perspective-correct interpolation", which is slightly non-linear, and is done automatically when you provide coordinates with depth information.
It may be possible to emulate it another way (though your options are limited since you do not have shaders available) but they will all likely be less efficient than using the dedicated functionality of your GPU. I recommend that you switch to using 3D coordinates.
Actually, I just found the answer. Turns out there's a Q coordinate which you can use to play around with trapezoidal texture distortion:
texture mapping a trapezoid with a square texture in OpenGL
http://www.xyzw.us/~cass/qcoord/
http://hacksoflife.blogspot.com.au/2008/08/perspective-correct-texturing-in-opengl.html
Looks like it won't be as correct as doing it 3D, but I suppose it will be easier for my use right now.

Non-Affine image transformations in .NET

Are there any classes, methods in the .NET library, or any algorithms in general, to perform non-affine transformations? (i.e. transformations that involve more than just rotation, scale, translation and shear)
e.g.:
(source: last100.com)
Is there another term for non-affine transformations?
I am not aware of anything integrated in .Net letting you do non affine transforms.
I guess you are trying to have some sort of 3D texture mapping? If that's the case you need an homogenous affine transform, which is not available in .Net. I'm also not aware of any integrated way to make pixel displacement transforms in .Net.
However, the currently voted solution might be good for what you are trying to do, just be aware that it won't do perspective correction out of the box.
For instance:
The picture on the left was generated using the single quad distort library provided by Neil N. The picture on the right was generated using a single quad (two triangles actually) in DirectX.
This may not have any impact on what you are trying to do, but this is something to keep in mind if you want to do 3D stuff, it will look very weird without perspective correct mapping.
All of the example images you posted can be done with a Quadrilateral Distortion. Though I cant say for certain that a quad distort will cover ALL non affine transforms.
Heres a link to a not so good implementation of it in C#... it works, but is slow. Poke around Wikipedia for the many different optimizations available for these kinds of calculations
http://www.vcskicks.com/image-distortion.html
-Neil
You can do this in wpf using a the Viewport3d control and a non-affine transform matrix. Rendering this to a bitmap again may be interesting.... Which I "fixed" by including an invisible <image> control with the same image as on my textured plane... (Also, I've had to work around the max texture size issues by splitting up the plane and cropping images...)
http://www.charlespetzold.com/blog/2007/08/060605.html
In my case I wanted the reverse of this (transform so arbitrary points on the warped become the corners of my rectangular window), which is the Inverse of the matrix to do the opposite.

Resources