Develop Reference

GPS lap & Segment timer

I've been searching for a while but haven't found exactly what I'm looking for.
I'm working on an app that will go in a race car. It will give the driver the ability to press a button to mark a Start/Finish line. It will also have a button to allow a driver to set segment times.
Keep in mind a track can be an oval which I'm working on first. It could be a road course or it could be an auto cross where the start and finish line aren't the exact same location. They could be with 50 feet of each other or so but the car never crosses where it starts.
I have my gps data coming in and I convert the NMea messages to my classes and I store Lat, Lon, Speed, Course etc. In my research I've ran across this which is interesting. The GPS will be mounted outside the roof for better signal. It generates 10 hits per second. (Garmin Glo)
http://www.drdobbs.com/windows/gps-programming-net/184405690?pgno=1
It's old but it talks about UTM and the Cartesian coordinate system. So using the DecDeg2UTM, I convert Lat & Lon to X & coordinates as well.
I've also been trying to use the Intersect formula I found Here I took the intersect and tried to convert it to C# which I'll post at the end. However, feeding coordinates of an oval track, it doesn't seem to be working. Also, I'm not sure exactly what it's supposed to be doing. But the coordinates it returns when it does somethign like -35.xxx & 98.xxxx which out in an ocean somewhere 1000's of miles from where the track is.
I looking for answers to the following.
I assume I need to take the location recorded when a button is pressed for Start/Finish or Segment and calculate a line perpendicular to the direction the car in able to be able to do some sort of Line Intersection calculation. The Cartesian coordinates seems to calculate the bearing fairly well. But the question here is how do you get the "left and right coordinates". Also, keep in mind, an oval track may be 60 feet wide. But as mentioned an auto cross track may only be 20 ft wide and part of the track may be with 50 ft. Note I'm fine with indicating to set the points, the car needs to be going slow or stopped at the points to get an accurate coordinate. Some tracks they will have to be set while walking the track.
Based on this, should I be trying to use decimal lat lon or would utilizing the Cartesian coordinate system based on UTM be a more accurate method for what I'm trying to do?
Either one is there a .Net library or C based library with source code that has methods for making these calculations?
How can this be accurately handled. (Not that great with Math, links to code samples would help tremendously.)
Next, after I have the lines or whatever is needed for start/finish and segments, as I get GPS sign from the car racing, I need to figure out the most accurate way to tell when a car has crossed those segments. again if I'm lucky I'll get 10 hits per second but it will probably be lower. Then the vehicle speeds could vary significantly depending on the type of track and vehicle. So the GPS hit could be many feet "left or right" of a segment. Also, it could be many feet before or after a segment.
Again, if there is a GIS library out there I can feed coordinates and all this is calculated, that's would work as well as long as it's performant. If not again I'm trying to decide if it's best to break down coordinates to X Y or some geometry formulas for coordinates in decimal format. Mods, I assume there is hard data to support an answer of either way and this isn't responses aren't fully subjective to opinions.
Here is the C# code I came up with from the Script page above. I'm starting to feel UTM and the Cartesian Coordinate system would be better for accuracy and performance. But again I'm open to evidence to the contrary if it exists.
Thanks
P.S. Note GeoCoordinate is from the .Net System.Device.Location assemble. GpsData is just a class I use to convert NMEA messages into Lat, Lon, Course, NumSats, DateTime etc.
The degree Radian methods are extensions as as follows.
public static double DegreeToRadians(this double angle)
{
return Math.PI * angle / 180.0;
}
public static double RadianToDegree(this double angle)
{
return angle * (180.0 / Math.PI);
}
}
public static GeoCoordinate CalculateIntersection(GpsData p1, double brng1, GpsData p2, double brng2)
{
// see http://williams.best.vwh.net/avform.htm#Intersection
// Not sure I need to use Cosine
double _p1LatRadians = p1.Latitude.DegreeToRadians();
double _p1LonToRadians = p1.Longitude.DegreeToRadians();
double _p2LatToRadians = p2.Latitude.DegreeToRadians();
double _p2LonToRadians = p2.Longitude.DegreeToRadians();
double _brng1ToRadians = brng1.DegreeToRadians();
double _brng2ToRadians = brng2.DegreeToRadians();
double _deltaLat = _p2LatToRadians - _p1LatRadians;
double _deltaLon = _p2LonToRadians - _p1LonToRadians;
var _var1 = 2 * Math.Asin(Math.Sqrt(Math.Sin(_deltaLat / 2) * Math.Sin(_deltaLat / 2)
+ Math.Cos(_p1LatRadians) * Math.Cos(_p2LatToRadians) * Math.Sin(_deltaLon / 2) * Math.Sin(_deltaLon / 2)));
if (_var1 == 0) return null;
// initial/final bearings between points
var _finalBrng = Math.Acos((Math.Sin(_p2LatToRadians) - Math.Sin(_p1LatRadians) * Math.Cos(_var1)) / (Math.Sin(_var1) * Math.Cos(_p1LatRadians)));
//if (isNaN(θa)) θa = 0; // protect against rounding
var θb = Math.Acos((Math.Sin(_p1LatRadians) - Math.Sin(_p2LatToRadians) * Math.Cos(_var1)) / (Math.Sin(_var1) * Math.Cos(_p2LatToRadians)));
var θ12 = Math.Sin(_p2LonToRadians - _p1LonToRadians) > 0 ? _finalBrng : 2 * Math.PI - _finalBrng;
var θ21 = Math.Sin(_p2LonToRadians - _p1LonToRadians) > 0 ? 2 * Math.PI - θb : θb;
var α1 = (_brng1ToRadians - θ12 + Math.PI) % (2 * Math.PI) - Math.PI; // angle 2-1-3
var α2 = (θ21 - _brng2ToRadians + Math.PI) % (2 * Math.PI) - Math.PI; // angle 1-2-3
if (Math.Sin(α1) == 0 && Math.Sin(α2) == 0) return null; // infinite intersections
if (Math.Sin(α1) * Math.Sin(α2) < 0) return null; // ambiguous intersection
α1 = Math.Abs(α1);
α2 = Math.Abs(α2);
// ... Ed Williams takes abs of α1/α2, but seems to break calculation?
var α3 = Math.Acos(-Math.Cos(α1) * Math.Cos(α2) + Math.Sin(α1) * Math.Sin(α2) * Math.Cos(_var1));
var δ13 = Math.Atan2(Math.Sin(_var1) * Math.Sin(α1) * Math.Sin(α2), Math.Cos(α2) + Math.Cos(α1) * Math.Cos(α3));
var _finalLatRadians = Math.Asin(Math.Sin(_p1LatRadians) * Math.Cos(δ13) + Math.Cos(_p1LatRadians) * Math.Sin(δ13) * Math.Cos(_brng1ToRadians));
var _lonBearing = Math.Atan2(Math.Sin(_brng1ToRadians) * Math.Sin(δ13) * Math.Cos(_p1LatRadians), Math.Cos(δ13) - Math.Sin(_p1LatRadians) * Math.Sin(_finalLatRadians));
var _finalLon = _p1LonToRadians + _lonBearing;
var _returnLat = _finalLatRadians.RadianToDegree();
var _latToDegree = _finalLon.RadianToDegree();
var _returnLon = ( _latToDegree + 540) % 360 - 180;
return new GeoCoordinate(_returnLat, _returnLon);
//return new LatLon(φ3.toDegrees(), (λ3.toDegrees() + 540) % 360 - 180); // normalise to −180..+180°
}

Algorithm for points inside a polyline inexplicably fails (AutoCAD)

I'm using the .NET API for Autocad, I have an algorithm (which I did not write) for determining if a point lies within a polygon (straight lines only).
I have been testing my command on the same 51 polygons repeatedly. 99% it will work perfectly. Every once in a while it will fail on 1 or more of the polygons, returning false for over 2000 points I am creating inside the bounding box of the polyline. I have seen it fail when the polyline isa simple rectangle and all of the points lie distributed in a grid within the polyline. It should have returned true over 2000 times in that case. It will never fail for just 1 of the points, it will fail all of them. I have confirmed that the points are being correctly created where I expect them to be and that the vertices of the polygon are where I expect them to be. When it fails, the last angle variable for the last point is at exactly double PI.
I am not doing any multi-threading. The only possibly 'funny' thing I am doing is COM Interop with Excel. This is happening after the transaction has been committed for the part with this algorithm, and I am sure I am cleaning up all my COM objects. I have not been able to reproduce the failure without the COM Interop part but I don't think I've tested it enough yet to have enough absence of evidence.
Any ideas what could be wrong?
bool IsInsidePolygon(Polyline polygon, Point3d pt)
{
int n = polygon.NumberOfVertices;
double angle = 0;
Point pt1, pt2;
for (int i = 0; i < n; i++)
{
pt1.X = polygon.GetPoint2dAt(i).X - pt.X;
pt1.Y = polygon.GetPoint2dAt(i).Y - pt.Y;
pt2.X = polygon.GetPoint2dAt((i + 1) % n).X - pt.X;
pt2.Y = polygon.GetPoint2dAt((i + 1) % n).Y - pt.Y;
angle += Angle2D(pt1.X, pt1.Y, pt2.X, pt2.Y);
}
if (Math.Abs(angle) < Math.PI)
return false;
else
return true;
}
public struct Point
{
public double X, Y;
};
public static double Angle2D(double x1, double y1, double x2, double y2)
{
double dtheta, theta1, theta2;
theta1 = Math.Atan2(y1, x1);
theta2 = Math.Atan2(y2, x2);
dtheta = theta2 - theta1;
while (dtheta > Math.PI)
dtheta -= (Math.PI * 2);
while (dtheta < -Math.PI)
dtheta += (Math.PI * 2);
return (dtheta);
}

Some ideas:
floating point comparison have to be done using a tolerence, this might cause kind of arbitrary results especially in case where the point lies on the polyline (same remark for point3d, they must be compared using a tolerence)
maybe the last point of your polyline is at the same location as the first one, in that case, the angle cannot be computed (perhaps this is why you get a double pi value for the last point). You should then test is first and last points are equals.
I'm not sure your algorithm works regardless if the polyline is clockwise or counterclockwise (I think yes)
you may convert your polyline into a region and rely on region point containment method

another method.
Make one "temporary" point outside the polygon (find the min X and Y and make a point with X-1 and Y-1).
Then make a line between your point and the new "temporary" point.
Check if this line crosses the polygon - use polyline.IntersectWith.
If number of cross points is odd - then your point is inside, if the number of crosses is even - the your point is not inside.
This works for me, hope it will helps you also.
If you find trouble with implementing this, i can send you an example code.
Regards,
Dobriyan Benov

I used some code from Kean Walmsley to convert 3d lines into 2d lines. But be aware that the following is not (always) true:
Point2d pt = lwp.GetPoint2dAt(i);
Point2d npt = new Point2d(lwp.GetPoint3dAt(i).X, lwp.GetPoint3dAt(i).Y);
pt == npt;
I encountered it using it on a polylines, with 3d vertices. I ended up using the npt.
http://through-the-interface.typepad.com/through_the_interface/2007/04/iterating_throu.html

Logarithmic Spiral - Is Point on Spiral (cartesian coordinates

Lets Say I have a 3d Cartesian grid. Lets also assume that there are one or more log spirals emanating from the origin on the horizontal plane.
If I then have a point in the grid I want to test if that point is in one of the spirals. I acutally want to test if it within a certain range of the spirals but determining if it is on the point is a good start.
So I guess the question has a couple parts.
How to generate the arms from parameters (direction, tightness)
How to tell if a point in the grid is in one of the spiral arms
Any ideas? I have been googling all day and don't feel I am any closer to a solution than when I started.
Here is a bit more information that might help:
I don't actually need to render the spirals. I want to set the pitch and rotation and then pass a point to a method that can tell me if the point I passed is within the spiral (within a given range of any point on the spiral). Based on the value returned (true or false) my program will make a decision on whether or not something exists at the point in space.
How to parametrically define the log spirals (pitch and rotation and ??)
Test if a point (x, y, z) is withing a given range of any point on the spiral.
Note: Both of the above would be just on the horizontal plane

These are two functions defining an anti-clockwise spiral:
PolarPlot[{
Exp[(t + 10)/100],
Exp[t/100]},
{t, 0, 100 Pi}]
Output:
These are two functions defining a clockwise spiral:
PolarPlot[{
- Exp[(t + 10)/100],
- Exp[t/100]},
{t, 0, 100 Pi}]
Output:
Cartesian coordinates
The conversion Cartesian <-> Polar is
(1) Ro = Sqrt[x^2+y^2]
t = ArcTan[y/x]
(2) x = Ro Cos[t]
y = Ro Sin[t]
So, If you have a point in Cartesian Coords (x,y) you transform it to your equivalent polar coordinates using (1). Then you use the forula for the spiral function (any of the four mentinoned above the plots, or similar ones) putting in there the value for t, and obtaining Ro. The last step is to compare this Ro with the one we got from the coordinates converion. If they are equal, the point is on the spiral.
Edit Answering your comment
For a Log spiral is almost the same, but with multiple spirals you need to take care of the logs not going to negative values. That's why I used exponentials ...
Example:
PolarPlot[{
Log[t],
If[t > 3, Log[ t - 2], 0],
If[t > 5, Log[ t - 4], 0]
}, {t, 1, 10}]
Output:

Not sure this is what you want, but you can reverse the log function (or "any" other for that matter).
Say you have ln A = B, to get A from B you do e^B = A.
So you get your point and pass it as B, you'll get A. Then you just need to check if that A (with a certain +- range) is in the values you first passed on to ln to generate the spiral.
I think this might work...

Unfortunately, you will need to know some mathematics notation anyway - this is a good read about the logarithmic sprial.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logarithmic_spiral
we will only need the top 4 equations.
For your question 1
- to control the tightness, you tune the parameter 'a' as in the wiki page.
- to control the direction, you offset theta by a certain amount.
For your question 2
In floating point arithmetic, you will never get absolute precision, which mean there will be no point falling exactly on the sprial. On the screen, however, you will know which pixel get rendered, and you can test whether you are hitting a point that is rendered.
To render a curve, you usually render it as a sequence of line segments, short enough so that overall it looks like a curve. If you want to know whether a point lies within certain distance from the spiral, you can render the curve (on a off-screen buffer if you wish) by having thicker lines.

here a C++ code drawing any spiral passing where the mouse here
(sorry for my English)
int cx = pWin->vue.right / 2;
int cy = pWin->vue.bottom / 2;
double theta_mouse = atan2((double)(pWin->y_mouse - cy),(double)(pWin->x_mouse - cx));
double square_d_mouse = (double)(pWin->y_mouse - cy)*(double)(pWin->y_mouse - cy)+
(double)(pWin->x_mouse - cx)*(double)(pWin->x_mouse - cx);
double d_mouse = sqrt(square_d_mouse);
double theta_t = log( d_mouse / 3.0 ) / log( 1.19 );
int x = cx + (3 * cos(theta_mouse));
int y = cy + (3 * sin(theta_mouse));
MoveToEx(hdc,x,y,NULL);
for(double theta=0.0;theta < PI2*5.0;theta+=0.1)
{
double d = pow( 1.19 , theta ) * 3.0;
x = cx + (d * cos(theta-theta_t+theta_mouse));
y = cy + (d * sin(theta-theta_t+theta_mouse));
LineTo(hdc,x,y);
}
Ok now the parameter of spiral is 1.19 (slope) and 3.0 (radius at center)
Just compare the points where theta is a mutiple of 2 PI = PI2 = 6,283185307179586476925286766559
if any points is near of a non rotated spiral like
x = cx + (d * cos(theta));
y = cy + (d * sin(theta));
then your mouse is ON the spiral... I searched this tonight and i googled your past question

How to simulate a harmonic oscillator driven by a given signal (not driven by sine wave)

I've got a table of values telling me how the signal level changes over time and I want to simulate a harmonic oscillator driven by this signal. It does not matter if the simulation is not 100% accurate.
I know the frequency of the oscillator.
I found lots of formulas but they all use a sine wave as driver.

I guess you want to perform some time-discrete simulation. The well-known formulae require analytic input (see Green's function). If you have a table of forces at some point in time, the typical analytical formulae won't help you too much.
The idea is this: For each point in time t0, the oscillator has some given acceleration, velocity, etc. Now a force acts on it -according to the table you were given- which will change it's acceleration (F = m * a). For the next time step t1, we assume the acceleration stays at that constant, so we can apply simple Newtonian equations (v = a * dt) with dt = (t1-t0) for this time frame. Iterate until the desired range in time is simulated.
The most important parameter of this simulation is dt, that is, how fine-grained the calculation is. For example, you might want to have 10 steps per second, but that completely depends on your input parameters. What we're doing here, in essence, is an Eulerian integration of the equations.
This, of course, isn't all there is - such simulations can be quite complicated, esp. in not-so-well behaved cases where extreme accelerations, etc. In those cases you need to perform numerical sanity checks within a frame, because something 'extreme' happens in a single frame. Also some numerical integration might become necessary, e.g. the Runge-Kutta algorithm. I guess that leads to far at this point, however.
EDIT: Just after I posted this, somebody posted a comment to the original question pointing to the "Verlet Algorithm", which is basically an implementation of what I described above.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simple_harmonic_motion
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hooke's_Law
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euler_method

Ok, i finally figured it out and wrote a gui app to test it until it worked. But my pc is not very happy with doing it 1000*44100 times per second, even without gui^^
Whatever: here is my test code (wich worked quite well):
double lastTime;
const double deltaT = 1 / 44100.0;//length of a frame in seconds
double rFreq;
private void InitPendulum()
{
double freq = 2;//frequency in herz
rFreq = FToRSpeed(freq);
damp = Math.Pow(0.8, freq * deltaT);
}
private static double FToRSpeed(double p)
{
p *= 2;
p = Math.PI * p;
return p * p;
}
double damp;
double bHeight;
double bSpeed;
double lastchange;
private void timer1_Tick(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
double now=sw.ElapsedTicks/(double)Stopwatch.Frequency;
while (lastTime+deltaT <= now)
{
bHeight += bSpeed * deltaT;
double prevSpeed=bSpeed;
bSpeed += (mouseY - bHeight) * (rFreq*deltaT);
bSpeed *= damp;
if ((bSpeed > 0) != (prevSpeed > 0))
{
Console.WriteLine(lastTime - lastchange);
lastchange = lastTime;
}
lastTime += deltaT;
}
Invalidate();//No, i am not using gdi^^
}

Angle between two 2d vectors, diff between two methods?

I've got this code snippet, and I'm wondering why the results of the first method differ from the results of the second method, given the same input?
public double AngleBetween_1(vector a, vector b) {
var dotProd = a.Dot(b);
var lenProd = a.Len*b.Len;
var divOperation = dotProd/lenProd;
return Math.Acos(divOperation) * (180.0 / Math.PI);
}
public double AngleBetween_2(vector a, vector b) {
var dotProd = a.Dot(b);
var lenProd = a.Len*b.Len;
var divOperation = dotProd/lenProd;
return (1/Math.Cos(divOperation)) * (180.0 / Math.PI);
}

It's because the first method is correct, while the second method is incorrect.
You may notice that the arccosine function is sometimes written "acos" and sometimes written "cos-1". This is a quirk of mathematical notation: "cos-1" is really the arccosine and NOT the reciprocal of the cosine (which is the secant).
However, if you ever see "cos2", then that's the square of the cosine, and "cos3" is the cube of the cosine. The notation for trigonometric functions is weird this way. Most operators use superscripts to indicate repeated application.

Math.Acos(divOperation) isn't equivalent to 1/Math.Cos(divOperation). arccos is the inverse function of cos, not the multiplicative inverse.

Probably because acos(x) ≠ 1/cos(x).