Find contact normal for sensor in Box2d 2.1a - actionscript-3

I am extending the b2ContactListener to find out the normals of my collisions. However, every time I get a contact with a sensor, the normal is always 0,0. How do I get the normal if one of the bodies is a sensor?
override public virtual function BeginContact( contact : b2Contact ) : void
{
var normal : b2Vec = contact.GetFixtureA.GetBody().GetContactList().contact.GetManifold().m_localPlaneNormal;
// normal is always 0,0 if it is a sensor.
}

The normal (and anything else in the contact manifold) is only necessary to calculate what kind of collision response should be applied to push two fixtures apart when they overlap. Since sensors don't have any collision response, this information is not needed and therefore not calculated for them.
One way you could get a normal without the usual collision response is to revert your fixture back to being a non-sensor, and in the PreSolve callback just do contact->SetEnabled(false) for every contact involving that fixture.

Related

How does this example violate LSP, which then causes violation of OCP?

From Agile Principles, Patterns, and Practices in C# by Robert Martin,
Listing 10-1. A violation of LSP causing a violation of OCP
struct Point {double x, y;}
public enum ShapeType {square, circle};
public class Shape
{
private ShapeType type;
public Shape(ShapeType t){type = t;}
public static void DrawShape(Shape s)
{
if(s.type == ShapeType.square)
(s as Square).Draw();
else if(s.type == ShapeType.circle)
(s as Circle).Draw();
}
}
public class Circle : Shape
{
private Point center;
private double radius;
public Circle() : base(ShapeType.circle) {}
public void Draw() {/* draws the circle */}
}
public class Square : Shape
{
private Point topLeft;
private double side;
public Square() : base(ShapeType.square) {}
public void Draw() {/* draws the square */}
}
DrawShape() violates OCP. It
must know about every possible derivative of the Shape class,
and it must be changed whenever new derivatives of Shape are
created.
The fact that Square and Circle cannot be substituted for Shape is a
violation of LSP. This violation forced the violation of OCP by
DrawShape . Thus, a violation of LSP is a latent violation of OCP.
How does it violate LSP?
(In particular, why can Square and Circle not be substituted for Shape?)
How does violation of LSP cause violation of OCP? (I can see it directly violates OCP, but I can't understand how violation of LSP causes violation of OCP.)
This is not an obvious or typical LSP violation, and one could argue that it isn't an LSP violation at all, but here's my interpretation:
The expectation is that a Shape is described by its type field. When DrawShape receives a Shape object, one of a few things can happen. Depending on the value of the type field, it could try to cast the object to a Square and call its Draw function, or try to cast it to a Circle to the same end. However, this is not guaranteed to work as expected for an arbitrary Shape. Specifically, it will only work if the object's dynamic type actually matches the semantic implication of it's type field. If the type field does not match its dynamic type, an exception will occur when trying to perform the dynamic cast. This is the behavior of DrawShape given a Shape object.
However, given a Square or Circle, there is a different expectation. Specifically, the function is expected to always execute one path or another without an exception, since the semantic implication of the type field will always match the object's dynamic type.
In other words, you could consider the DrawShape function to have four interesting paths of execution for a Shape object: an exception occuring at the dynamic Circle cast, an exception occuring at the dynamic Square cast, or a successful execution of either the Square or Circle draw functions.
When a child is substituted, the first two paths mentioned are no longer possible, and for a given child, only one path is possible.
Alternatively, it could be argued that there is no LSP violation; the function still "acts" in the same way for a child substitution as it would for a parent. Squares and Circles simply have an extra implication, being that the type field will definitely match the dynamic type of the object, restricting the execution results of the function at runtime. While it could be thought of as changing the function expectations, it could also simply be thought of as imposing a pre-condition.
Edit
I suppose I forgot to answer part of the question: The reason this supposed LSP violation "causes" an OCP violation is because the function logic which causes the behavior to be different for Shapes versus Squares and Circles, being the dynamic casting to the children, is the very same logic which forces the Shape class to depend on its children. Thus, by violating the LSP using conditional logic about the subclasses, it in turn violates the OCP.
I don't know if I myself would really call this particular case a situation of "causation" so much as simple event intersection, but perhaps this was the author's intention.

Best and most performant implementation of dynamic shapes in cesium

I am currently working an application that is using a Cesium Viewer. I need to be able to display a collection of shapes that will be updated dynamically. I am having trouble understanding the best way to do this.
I currently am using Entities and using CallbackProperties to allow for the updating of shapes.
You can through this into a sandcastle to get an idea of how I am doing this. There is a polygon object that is being used as the basis for the cesiumCallback, and it is getting edited by another piece of code. (simulated with the setTimeout)
var viewer = new Cesium.Viewer('cesiumContainer', {});
var polygon = {};
polygon.coordinates = [
{longitude: 0, latitude: 0, altitude: 0},
{longitude: 10, latitude: 10, altitude: 0},
{longitude: 10, latitude: 0, altitude: 0}
];
// converts generic style options to cesium one (aka color -> material)
var polOpts = {};
// function for getting location
polOpts.hierarchy = new Cesium.CallbackProperty(function() {
var hierarchy = [];
for (var i = 0; i < polygon.coordinates.length; i++) {
var coordinate = polygon.coordinates[i];
hierarchy.push(Cesium.Cartesian3.fromDegrees(coordinate.longitude, coordinate.latitude, coordinate.altitude));
}
return hierarchy;
}, false);
viewer.entities.add({polygon: polOpts});
setInterval(function(polygon){
polygon.coordinates[0].longitude--;
}.bind(this, polygon), 1000);
The polygon being passed in is a class that generically describes a polygon, so it has an array of coordinates and style options, as well as a render method that calls this method renderPolygon passing in itself.
This method of rendering shapes works for everything I need it to, but it is not very performant. There are two cases for shapes updating, one type of shape will be updated over a long period of time, as a slow rate like once every few seconds. The other is shapes that will will get updated many times, like thousands, in a few seconds, then not change again for a long time, if ever.
I had two ideas for how to fix this.
Idea 1:
Have two methods, a renderDynamicPolygon and a renderStaticPolygon.
The renderDynamicPolygon method would do the above functionality, using the cesiumCallbackProperties. This would be used for shapes that are getting updated many times during the short time they are being updated.
The renderStaticPolygon method would replace the entities properties that are using callbackProperties with constant values, once the updating is done.
This creates a lot of other work to make sure shapes are in the right state, and doesn't help the shapes that are being updated slowly over a long period of time.
Idea 2:
Similarly to how the primitives work, I tried removing the old entity and adding it again with its updated properties each time its need to be updated, but this resulted in flickering, and unlike primitives, i could not find a async property for entities.
I also tried using primitives. It worked great for polylines, I would simply remove the old one and add a new one with the updated properties. I was also using the async = false to ensure there was no flickering. This issue I ran into here was not all shapes can be created using primitives. (Is this true?)
The other thing I tried was using the geometry instance using the geometry and appearance. After going through the tutorial on the cesium website I was able to render a few shapes, and could update the appearance, but found it close to impossible to figure out how to update the shapes correctly, and also have a very hard time getting them to look correct. Shapes need to have the right shape, a fill color and opacity and a stroke color, opacity and weight. I tried to use the polygonOutlineGeometry, but had not luck.
What would be the best way to implement this? Are one of these options headed the right way or is there some other method of doing this I have not uncovered yet?
[Edit] I added an answer of where I have gotten, but still not complete and looking for answers.
I have came up with a pretty good solution to this, but it still has one small issue.
I made too ways of showing entities. I am calling one render and one paint. Render uses the the Cesium.CallbackProperty with the isConstant property true, and paint with the isConstantProperty false.
Then I created a function to change the an entity from render to paint and vice vera. It goes through the entities callback properties an uses the setCallback property to overwrite the property with a the correct function and isConstant value.
Example:
I create a ellipse based on a circle object I have defined.
// isConst is True if it is being "painted" and false if it is being "rendered"
ellipse: lenz.util.extend(this._getStyleOptions(circle), {
semiMinorAxis: new Cesium.CallbackProperty(
this._getRadius.bind(this, circle),
isConst
),
semiMajorAxis: new Cesium.CallbackProperty(
this._getRadius.bind(this, circle),
isConst
),
})
So when the shape is being updated (while the user is drawing a shape) the shape is rendered with the isConstant being false.
Then when the drawing is complete it is converted to the painted version using some code like this:
existingEntity.ellipse.semiMinorAxis.setCallback(
this._getRadius.bind(this, circle),
isConst
);
existingEntity.ellipse.semiMajorAxis.setCallback(
this._getRadius.bind(this, circle, 1),
isConst
);
This works great performance wise. I am able to draw hundreds of shapes without the frame dropping much at all. I have attached a screen shot of the cesium map with 612 entities before and after my changes, the frame rate is in the upper right using the chrome render tool.
Before: Locked up at fps 0.9
Note: I redacted the rest of the ui, witch makes the globe look cut off, sorry
And after the changes: The fps remains at 59.9, almost perfect!
Whenever the entity is 'converted' from using constant to not constant callback properties, it and all other entities of the same type flash off then on again. I cannot find a better way to do this conversion. I feel as thought there must still be some thing I am missing.
You could try using a PositionPropertyArray as the polygon's hierarchy with SampledPositionProperty for any dynamic positions and ConstantPositionProperty for any static positions. I'm not sure if it would perform any better than your solution, but it might be worth testing. Here is an example of how it might work that you can paste into the Cesium Sandcastle:
var viewer = new Cesium.Viewer('cesiumContainer', {});
// required if you want no interpolation of position between times
var noInterpolation = {
type: 'No Interpolation',
getRequiredDataPoints: function (degree) {
return 2;
},
interpolateOrderZero: function (x, xTable, yTable, yStride, result) {
if (!Cesium.defined(result)) {
result = new Array(yStride);
}
for (var i = 0; i < yStride; i++) {
result[i] = yTable[i];
}
return result;
}
};
var start = viewer.clock.currentTime;
// set up the sampled position property
var sampledPositionProperty = new Cesium.SampledPositionProperty();
sampledPositionProperty.forwardExtrapolationType = Cesium.ExtrapolationType.HOLD;
sampledPositionProperty.addSample(start, new Cesium.Cartesian3.fromDegrees(0, 0)); // initial position
sampledPositionProperty.setInterpolationOptions({
interpolationAlgorithm: noInterpolation
});
// set up the sampled position property array
var positions = [
sampledPositionProperty,
new Cesium.ConstantPositionProperty(new Cesium.Cartesian3.fromDegrees(10, 10)),
new Cesium.ConstantPositionProperty(new Cesium.Cartesian3.fromDegrees(10, 0))
];
// add the polygon to Cesium viewer
var polygonEntity = new Cesium.Entity({
polygon: {
hierarchy: new Cesium.PositionPropertyArray(positions)
}
});
viewer.zoomTo(viewer.entities.add(polygonEntity));
// add a sample every second
var counter = 1;
setInterval(function(positionArray) {
var time = new Cesium.JulianDate.addSeconds(start, counter, new Cesium.JulianDate());
var position = new Cesium.Cartesian3.fromDegrees(-counter, 0);
positionArray[0].addSample(time, position);
counter++;
}.bind(this, positions), 1000);
One nice thing about this is you can set the timeline start/end time to a reasonable range and use it to see your polygon at any time within the sample range so you can see the history of your polygons through time (See here for how to change the timeline start/end time). Additionally, you don't need to use timers to set the positions, the time is built in to the SampledPositionProperty (although you can still add samples asynchronously).
However, this also means that the position depends on the current time in the timeline instead of a real-time array value. And you might need to keep track of a time somewhere if you aren't adding all the samples at once.
I've also never done this using ellipses before, but the semiMinorAxis and semiMajorAxis are properties, so you might still be able to use a SampledProperty.
Of course, this doesn't really matter if there are still performance issues. Hopefully it will improve as you don't need to recreate the array from scratch each callback and, depending on how you're getting the data to update the polygons, you might be able to add multiple samples at once. This is just speculation, but it's something to consider.
EDIT
Cesium can handle quite a bit of samples added to a sampled position, for example in the above code if you add a million samples to the position it takes a few seconds to load them all, but renders the polygon at any time without any performance issues. To test this, instead of adding samples using a timer, just add them all directly to the property.
for (var i = 0; i < 1000000; i++) {
var time = new Cesium.JulianDate.addSeconds(start, i, new Cesium.JulianDate());
var position = new Cesium.Cartesian3.fromDegrees(-(i % 2), 0);
positions[0].addSample(time, position);
}
However, if you run into memory problems currently there is no way to remove samples from a position property without accessing private variables. A work around would be to periodically create a new array containing new position properties and use the previous position property array's setValue() method to clear previous values or perhaps to use a TimeIntervalCollectionProperty as in this answer and remove time intervals with the removeInterval method.

How do I HitTest two rotating objects properly? (A way to avoid bounding boxes)

I took an intro level flash course in college this semester and our final task was to make a mini-flash game.
I had to make a pipe-dream type game where there are a number of levels, and in each level you have to align the pipes so that the water flows and then you can pass to the next level.
I successfully made the first level, but upon making the second level,
where I placed a lot of curved pipes (by curved pipes I mean the attached image: ![Curved Pipe]: (http://imgur.com/mwpXAMn) )
I discovered that the method I use to decide when a level is complete is not working properly.
I was using HitTestObject, basically, I was testing whether 2 objects, Pipe_1, and Pipe_2, were intersecting. If all pipes intersected in the correct way, then procession to the next level is granted.
The problem with this I discovered is that flash has bounding boxes for movie clips you make, and that HitestObject uses bounding boxes to test for hits. Therefore, when you rotate a leftpipe so that it does not touch a straight pipe on screen, the bounding boxes still touch and it returns "collision" when in fact it is not actually touching on screen.
I looked up and found that you can use HitTestPoint but I can't figure out how to somehow make dynamic variables (that change upon rotation of object) that store one or two specific points on the leftpipe, say the two ends of it.
Once If I figure out how to get these values into a variable correctly, then I can figure out how to do HitTestpoint.
Also, I know of the LocaltoGlobal function but no matter what I try it keeps coming up with:
"Scene 1, Layer 'Layer 1', Frame 1, Line 30 1118: Implicit coercion of a value with static type Object to a possibly unrelated type flash.geom:Point."
meaning I don't know the correct code to store an x and a y coordinate as dynamic variables.
edit: ok since a person asked, I hunted this piece of code off the web and this is the one I was trying to play around with but to no avail:
How to use HitTest for 2 rectangles, r1 is rectangle 1 r2 is rectangle 2.
var r1width:Number = 135.0; //width of retangle 1 whith rotation 0
var r2width:Number = 93.0; //width of retangle 2 whith rotation 0
var p1:Object = {x:(r1width/2), y:(r1width/2)};
var p2:Object = {x:(-r1width/2), y:(r1width/2)};
var p3:Object = {x:(-r1width/2), y:(-r1width/2)};
var p4:Object = {x:(r1width/2), y:(-r1width/2)};
r1.localToGlobal(p1);
r1.localToGlobal(p2);
r1.localToGlobal(p3);
r1.localToGlobal(p4);
var p5:Object = {x:(r2width/2), y:(r2width/2)};
var p6:Object = {x:(-r2width/2), y:(r2width/2)};
var p7:Object = {x:(-r2width/2), y:(-r2width/2)};
var p8:Object = {x:(r2width/2), y:(-r2width/2)};
r2.localToGlobal(p5);
r2.localToGlobal(p6);
r2.localToGlobal(p7);
r2.localToGlobal(p8);
if((r2.hitTest(p1.x, p1.y, true))||(r2.hitTest(p2.x, p2.y, true))||(r2.hitTest(p3.x,
p3.y, true))||(r2.hitTest(p4.x, p4.y, true)))
{
trace('collision');
}
if((r1.hitTest(p5.x, p5.y, true))||(r1.hitTest(p6.x, p6.y, true))||(r1.hitTest(p7.x,
p7.y, true))||(r1.hitTest(p8.x, p8.y, true)))
{
trace('collision');
}
I did not write this code and it does not work. I'm not sure what "Object" is because I've never used it before, I'm assuming in this case it's sort of acting like a coordinate pair.
Also, this code is to hittest 2 rectangles, whereas I'm using an L-shaped pipe, so the x/y calculation would be quite different I imagine.
This code above gives the same error that I posted before:
Implicit coercion of a value with static type Object to a possibly unrelated type flash.geom:Point.
and it gives it first on line r1.localToGlobal(p1);
Instead of using Object, you need to use Point like so:
var p1:Point = new Point(r1width/2, r1width/2);

more minimaler cubism.js horizon chart from json example

Following up on a previous question... I've got my minimal horizon chart example much more minimaler than before ( minimal cubism.js horizon chart example (TypeError: callback is not a function) )
<body>
<div class="mag"></div>
<script type="text/javascript">
var myContext = cubism.context();
var myMetr = myContext.metric(function(start, stop, step, callback) {
d3.json("../json/600s.json.php?t0=" + start/1000 + "&t1=" + stop/1000 + "&ss=" + step/1000, function(er, dt) {
if (!dt) return callback(new Error("unable to load data, or has NaNs"));
callback(null, dt.val);
});
});
var myHoriz = myContext.horizon()
.metric(myMetr);
d3.select(".mag")
.call(myHoriz);
</script>
</body>
The d3.json() bit calls a server side .php that I've written that returns a .json version of my measurements. The .php takes the start, stop, step (which cubism's context.metric() uses) as the t0, t1, and ss items in its http query string and sends back a .json file. The divides by 1000 are because I made my .php expect parameters in s, not ms. And the dt.val is because the actual array of my measurements is in the "val" member of the json output, e.g.
{
"other":"unused members...",
"n":5,
"val":[
22292.078125,
22292.03515625,
22292.005859375,
22292.02734375,
22292.021484375
]
}
The problem is, now that I've got it pared down to (I think) the bare minimum, AND I actually understand all of it instead of just pasting from other examples and hoping for the best (in which scenario, most things I try to change just break things instead of improving them), I need to start adding parameters and functions back to make it visually more useful.
Two problems first of all are, this measurement hovers all day around 22,300, and only varies +/- 10 maybe all day, so the graph is just a solid green rectangle, AND the label just says constantly "22k".
I've fixed the label with .format(d3.format(".3f")) (versus the default .2s which uses SI metric prefixes, thus the "22k" above).
What I can't figure out is how to use either axis, scale, extent, or what, so that this only shows a range of numbers that are relevant to the viewer. I don't actually care about the positive-green and negative-blue and darkening colours aspects of the horizon chart. I just used it as proof-of-concept to get the constantly-shifting window of measurements from my .json data source, but the part I really need to keep is the serverDelay, step, size, and such features of cubism.js that intelligently grab the initial window of data, and incrementally grab more via the .json requests.
So how do I keep the cubism bits I need, but usefully change my all-22300s graph to show the important +/- 10 units?
update re Scott Cameron's suggestion of horizon.extent([22315, 22320])... yes I had tried that and it had zero effect. Other things I've changed so far from "minimal" above...
var myHoriz = myContext.horizon()
.metric(myMetr)
.format(d3.format(".2f"))
.height(100)
.title("base1 (m): ")
.colors(["#08519c", "#006d2c"])
// .extent([22315, 22320]) // no effect with or without this line
;
I was able to improve the graph by using metric.subtract inserting it above the myHoriz line like so: (but it made the numerical label useless now):
var myMetr2 = myMetr.subtract(22315);
var myHoriz = myContext.horizon()
.metric(myMetr2)
.format...(continue as above)
All the examples seem so concise and expressive and work fine verbatim but so many of the tweaks I try to make to them seem to backfire, I'm not sure why that is. And similarly when I refer to the API wiki... maybe 4 out of 5 things I use from the API work immediately, but then I always seem to hit one that seems to have no effect, or breaks the chart completely. I'm not sure I've wrapped my head around how so many of the parameters being passed around are actually functions, for one thing.
Next hurdles after this scale/extent question, will be getting the horizontal time axis back (after having chopped it out to make things more minimal and easier to understand), and switching this from an area-looking graph to more of a line graph.
Anyway, all direction and suggestion appreciated.
Here's the one with the better vertical scale, but now the numerical label isn't what I want:
Have you tried horizon.extent? It lets you specify the [min, max] value for the horizon chart. By default, a linear scale will be created to map values within the extent to the pixels within the chart's height (specified with `horizon.height or default to 30 pixels).

Animation flickering problem

This is the game loop in my code and the drawing code:
float frames_per_second = 60;
display_timer = al_create_timer(1/frames_per_second);
queue = al_create_event_queue();
al_register_event_source(queue, al_get_timer_event_source(display_timer));
al_start_timer(display_timer);
while(!end_game)
{
ALLEGRO_EVENT event;
al_wait_for_event(queue, &event);
if(event.type == ALLEGRO_EVENT_DISPLAY_CLOSE) break;
if(event.any.source == al_get_timer_event_source(display_timer))
{update_display();}
update_input();
}
void update_display()
{
al_clear_to_color(al_map_rgb(255, 255,255));
draw_objects(); //this is just an al_draw_bitmap() call
al_flip_display();
}
The animation created by moving objects on screen flickers, I'm surprised by this since I write to the back buffer of the screen thus I expect double buffering. What can I do to correct the flickering? Thanks.
Unrelated to the problem, you can check a timer by looking for the ALLEGRO_EVENT_TIMER event. You can use event.timer.source to check which timer it is, if you have more than one.
I think the main problem here is that you are drawing the graphics at 60fps but you are updating the input at an unlimited rate. This is actually backwards. You want to update the input at a fixed rate. You can draw the graphics as often as you like... although it makes no sense to update the graphics if nothing has changed.
So it should look something more like:
if(event.type == ALLEGRO_EVENT_TIMER)
{
update_input();
update_display();
}
However, this does not implement frame skipping if things get too slow. What you should do is set up the timer in a dedicated queue (that contains no other event sources). Then as long as there are events sitting in that dedicated timer queue, update the input.
Then update the display, assuming you've processed at least one tick. So you may, if things get too slow, do multiple input updates per drawn frame.