I have looked at this example using php and GD to piecewise-render a spiral with small arcs. What I would like to do is render an approximation to a spiral that is as mathematically accurate as possible.
Inkscape has a spiral tool that looks pretty good, but I would like to do the spiral generation programmatically (preferably in Python).
I haven't found any drawing libraries (e.g. Cairo) that natively support spiral shapes. If one wanted to render a perfect antialiased spiral, would the best way be to just iterate pixel-by pixel over a canvas, determining whether each pixel lies within a mathematically-defined spiral arm region (of finite thickness)? In that case, one would also have to implement anti-aliasing logic from scratch. Would you integrate the portion of the curve that lies within each pixel box, then convert the ratio of filled to empty area to an alpha value?
In this instance the quality of the rendering is more important than the rendering time. However, evaluating an integral at each pixel strikes me as pretty inefficient.
Update: I believe the question I should be asking is this one (for which Yahoo Answers has failed).
Wouldn't it be easier to draw a curve (spline?) and just generate plenty of control points? Like that you'd pick up an existing antialiasing engine.
[EDIT]: A first approximation to this (done with Tcl/Tk, but the code should be easy to convert) gives me this:
# Make the list of spiral coordinates
set coords {}
set theta 0; set r 10
set centerX 200; set centerY 150
# Go out 50 pixels per revolution
set pitch [expr {100.0 / 720.0}]
for {set i 0} {$i<720} {incr i} {
lappend coords [expr { $centerX + $r*sin($theta) }] \
[expr { $centerY + $r*cos($theta) }]
set r [expr { $r + $pitch }]
# Increment angle by one degree
set theta [expr { $theta + 3.1415927/180 }]
}
# Display as a spline
pack [canvas .c -width 400 -height 300]
.c create line $coords -tag spiral -smooth 1
I've not made any effort to be efficient in my use of control points.
I haven't found any drawing libraries (e.g. Cairo) that natively support spiral shapes
No, it's quite an unusual feature; it's only very recently that drawing with spirals has become popular.
The code Inkscape uses for this is Spiro. It's mostly Python, and can use Cairo to render the beziers that the spirals are approximated into.
However, evaluating an integral at each pixel strikes me as pretty inefficient.
Yes, indeed.
Related
I am currently experimenting with openGL, and I'm drawing a lot of circles that I have to break down to triangles (triangulate a circle).
I've been calculating the vertices of the triangles by having an angle that is incremented, and using cos() and sin() to get the x and y values for one vertex.
I searched a bit on the internet about the best and most efficient way of doing this, and even though there's not much information avaliable realized that thin and long triangles (my approach) are not very good. A better approach would be to start with an equilateral triangle and then repeatedly add triangles that cover the larges possible area that's not yet covered.
left - my method; right - new method
I am wondering if this is the most efficient way of doing this, and if yes, how would that be implemented in actual code.
The website where I found the method: link
both triangulations has their pros and cons
The Triangle FAN has equal sized triangles which sometimes looks better with textures (and other interpolated stuff) and the code to generate is simple for loop with parametric circle equation.
The increasing detail mesh has less triangles and can easily support LOD which might be faster. However number of points is not arbitrary (3,6,12,24,48,...). The code is slightly more complicated you could:
start with equilateral triangle remembering circumference edges
so add triangle (p0,p1,p2) to mesh and edges (p0,p1),(p1,p2),(p2,p0) to circumference.
for each edge (p0,p1) of circumference
compute:
p2 = 0.5*(p0+p1); // mid point
p2 = r*p2/|p2|; // normalize it to circle circumference assuming (0,0) is center
add triangle (p0,p1,p2) to mesh and replace p0,p1 edge with (p0,p2),(p2,p1) edges
note that r/|p2| will be the same for all edges in current detail level so no need to compute expensive |p2| over and over again.
goto #2 until you have enough dense triangulation
so 2 for loops and few dynamic lists (points,triangles,circumference_edges,and some temps if not doing this inplace). Also this method does not need goniometrics at all (can be modified to generate the triangle fan too).
Here similar stuff:
sphere triangulation using similar technique
I'm trying to figure out some simple concepts about image based lighting for PBR. In many documents and code, I've seen the light direction (FragToLightDir) being set to the reflection vector (reflect(EyeToFragDir,Normal)). Then they set the half vector to the mid-way point between the light and view direction: HalfVecDir = normalize(FragToLightDir+FragToEyeDir); But doesn't this just result in the half vector being identical to the surface normal? If so, this would mean that terms like NDotH are always 1.0. Is this correct?
Here is another source of confusion for me. I'm trying to implement specular cube maps from the app Lys, using their algorithm for generating the correct roughness value to use for mip-level sampling based on roughness (here: https://docs.knaldtech.com/doku.php?id=specular_lys#pre-convolved_cube_maps_vs_path_tracers in the section Pre-convolved Cube Maps vs Path Tracers). In this document, they ask us to use NDotR as a scalar. But what is this NDotR in respect to IBL? If it means dot(Normal,ReflectDir), then isn't that exactly equivalent to dot(Normal,FragToEyeDir)? If I use either of these dot product results, the final result is too glossy at grazing angles (when compared to their more simplistic conversion using BurleyToMipSimple()), which makes me think I'm misunderstanding something about this process. I've tested the algorithm using NDotH, and it looks correct, but isn't this simply canceling out the rest of the math, since NDotH==1.0? Here is my very simple function to extract the mip level using their suggested logic:
float computeSpecularCubeMipTest(float perc_ruf)
{
//float n_dot_r = dot( Normal, Reflect );
float specular_power = ( 2.0 / max( EPSILON, perc_ruf*perc_ruf*perc_ruf*perc_ruf ) ) - 2.0;
specular_power /= ( 4.0 * max( NDotR, EPSILON ) );
return sqrt( max( EPSILON, sqrt(2.0/( specular_power + 2.0 )))) * MipScaler;
}
I realize this is an esoteric subject. Since everyone is using popular game engines these days, no one is forced to understand this madness! But I appreciate any advice on how to go about this.
Edit: Just to make sure I'm clear, I'm referring to pure image based lighting, with no directional lights, no spot lights, etc. Just a cube map that lights the whole scene, similar to the lighting in apps like Substance Painter and Blender's Viewport shading mode.
I'm not familiar with this particular app, but it looks like you're on the right track here. Part of the advantage of pre-convoluting the cube maps is to customize each pixel to be the light source for a particular reflection vector, so indeed NdotV is identical to NdotR as you've noticed. The R still needs to be calculated, for the texture lookup, so it doesn't matter much which one you use for the dot. There is no such thing as H or NdotH used for IBL lookups; those are only for point lights.
If the grazing angles look wrong, perhaps there's a Fresnel term missing somewhere? Reflections start to work differently at those angles.
For what it's worth, the glTF Sample Viewer is using NdotV for its specular IBL lookup.
Image morphing is mostly a graphic design SFX to adapt one picture into another one using some points decided by the artist, who has to match the eyes some key zones on one portrait with another, and then some kinds of algorithms adapt the entire picture to change from one to another.
I would like to do something a bit similar with a shader, which can load any 2 graphics and automatically choose zones of the most similar colors in the same kinds of zone of the picture and automatically morph two pictures in real time processing. Perhaps a shader based version would be logically alot faster at the task? except I don't even understand how it works at all.
If you know, Please don't worry about a complete reply about the process, it would be great if you have save vague background concepts and keywords, for how to attempt a 2d texture morph in a graphics shader.
There are more morphing methods out there the one you are describing is based on geometry.
morph by interpolation
you have 2 data sets with similar properties (for example 2 images are both 2D) and interpolate between them by some parameter. In case of 2D images you can use linear interpolation if both images are the same resolution or trilinear interpolation if not.
So you just pick corresponding pixels from each images and interpolate the actual color for some parameter t=<0,1>. for the same resolution something like this:
for (y=0;y<img1.height;y++)
for (x=0;x<img1.width;x++)
img.pixel[x][y]=(1.0-t)*img1.pixel[x][y] + t*img2.pixel[x][y];
where img1,img2 are input images and img is the ouptput. Beware the t is float so you need to overtype to avoid integer rounding problems or use scale t=<0,256> and correct the result by bit shift right by 8 bits or by /256 For different sizes you need to bilinear-ly interpolate the corresponding (x,y) position in both of the source images first.
All This can be done very easily in fragment shader. Just bind the img1,img2 to texture units 0,1 pick the texel from them interpolate and output the final color. The bilinear coordinate interpolation is done automatically by GLSL because texture coordinates are normalized to <0,1> no matter the resolution. In Vertex you just pass the texture and vertex coordinates. And in main program side you just draw single Quad covering the final image output...
morph by geometry
You have 2 polygons (or matching points) and interpolate their positions between the 2. For example something like this: Morph a cube to coil. This is suited for vector graphics. you just need to have points corespondency and then the interpolation is similar to #1.
for (i=0;i<points;i++)
{
p(i).x=(1.0-t)*p1.x + t*p2.x
p(i).y=(1.0-t)*p1.y + t*p2.y
}
where p1(i),p2(i) is i-th point from each input geometry set and p(i) is point from the final result...
To enhance visual appearance the linear interpolation is exchanged with specific trajectory (like BEZIER curves) so the morph look more cool. For example see
Path generation for non-intersecting disc movement on a plane
To acomplish this you need to use geometry shader (or maybe even tesselation shader). you would need to pass both polygons as single primitive, then geometry shader should interpolate the actual polygon and pass it to vertex shader.
morph by particle swarms
In this case you find corresponding pixels in source images by matching colors. Then handle each pixel as particle and create its path from position in img1 to img2 with parameter t. It i s the same as #2 but instead polygon areas you got just points. The particle has its color,position you interpolate both ... because there is very slim chance you will get exact color matches and the count ... (histograms would be the same) which is in-probable.
hybrid morphing
It is any combination of #1,#2,#3
I am sure there is more methods for morphing these are just the ones I know of. Also the morphing can be done not only in spatial domain...
Here is a excerpt from Peter Shirley's Fundamentals of computer graphics:
11.1.2 Texture Arrays
We will assume the two dimensions to be mapped are called u and v.
We also assume we have an nx and ny image that we use as the texture.
Somehow we need every (u,v) to have an associated color found from the
image. A fairly standard way to make texturing work for (u,v) is to
first remove the integer portion of (u,v) so that it lies in the unit
square. This has the effect of "tiling" the entire uv plane with
copies of the now-square texture. We then use one of the three
interpolation strategies to compute the image color for the
coordinates.
My question is: What are the integer portion of (u,v)? I thought u,v are 0 <= u,v <= 1.0. If there is an integer portion, shouldn't we be dividing u,v by the texture image width and height to get the normalized u,v values?
UV values can be less than 0 or greater than 1. The reason for dropping the integer portion is that UV values use the fractional part when indexing textures, where (0,0), (0,1), (1,0) and (1,1) correspond to the texture's corners. Allowing UV values to go beyond 0 and 1 is what enables the "tiling" effect to work.
For example, if you have a rectangle whose corners are indexed with the UV points (0,0), (0,2), (2,0), (2,2), and assuming the texture is set to tile the rectangle, then four copies of the texture will be drawn on that rectangle.
The meaning of a UV value's integer part depends on the wrapping mode. In OpenGL, for example, there are at least three wrapping modes:
GL_REPEAT - The integer part is ignored and has no meaning. This is what allows textures to tile when UV values go beyond 0 and 1.
GL_MIRRORED_REPEAT - The fractional part is mirrored if the integer part is odd.
GL_CLAMP_TO_EDGE - Values greater than 1 are clamped to 1, and values less than 0 are clamped to 0.
Peter O's answer is excellent. I want to add a high level point that the coordinate systems used in graphics are a convention that people just stick to as a defacto standard-- there's no law of nature here and it is arbitrary (but a decent standard thank goodness). I think one reason texture mapping is often confusing is that the arbitrariness of this stardard isn't obvious. This is that the image has a de facto coordinate system on the unit square [0,1]^2. Give me a (u,v) on the unit square and I will tell you a point in the image (for example, (0.2,0.3) is 20% to the right and 30% up from the bottom-left corner of the image). But what if you give me a (u,v) that is outside [0,1]^2 like (22.7, -13.4)? Some rule is used to make that on [0.1]^2, and the GL modes described are just various useful hacks to deal with that case.
What kind of algorithms would generate random "goo balls" like those in World of Goo. I'm using Proccesing, but any generic algorithm would do.
I guess it boils down to how to "randomly" make balls that are kind of round, but not perfectly round, and still looking realistic?
Thanks in advance!
The thing that makes objects realistic in World of Goo is not their shape, but the fact that the behavior of objects is a (more or less) realistic simulation of 2D physics, especially
bending, stretching, compressing (elastic deformation)
breaking due to stress
and all of the above with proper simulation of dynamics, with no perceivable shortcuts
So, try to make the behavior of your objects realistic and that will make them look (feel) realistic.
Not sure if this is what you're looking for since I can't look at that site from work. :)
A circle is just a special case of an ellipse, where the major and minor axes are equal. A squished ball shape is an ellipse where one of the axes is longer than the other. You can generate different lengths for the axes and rotate the ellipse around to get these kinds of irregular shapes.
Maybe Metaballs (wiki) are something to start from.. but I'm not sure.
Otherwise I would suggest a particle approach in which a ball is composed by many particles that stick together, giving an irregularity (mind that this needs a minimal physical engine to handle the spring body that keeps all particles together).
As Unreason said, World of Goo is not so much about shape, but physics simulation.
But an easy way to create ball-like irregular shapes could be to start with n vertices (points) V_1, V_2 ... V_n on a circle and apply some random deformation to it. There are many ways to do that, going from simply moving around some single vertices to complex physical simulations.
Some ideas:
1) Chose a random vertex V_i, chose a random vector T, apply that vector as a translation (movement) to V_i, apply T to all other vertices V_j, too, but scaled down depending on the "distance" from V_i (where distance could be the absolute differenece between j and i, or the actual geometric distance of V_j to V_i). For the scaling factor you could use any function f that is 1 for f(0) and decreasing for increasing distances (basically a radial basis function).
for each V_j
V_j = scalingFactor(distance(V_i, V_j)) * translationVector + V_j
2) You move V_i as in 1, but now you simulate springlike connections between all neigbouring vertices and iteratively move all vertices based on the forces created by stretched springs.
3) For more round shapes you can do 1) or 2) on the control points of a B-spline curve.
Beware of self-intersections when you move vertices too much.
Just some rough ideas, not tested...