How to calculate both positive and negative angle between two lines?
Posted
by Jaanus
on Stack Overflow
See other posts from Stack Overflow
or by Jaanus
Published on 2010-04-18T19:16:14Z
Indexed on
2010/04/18
19:33 UTC
Read the original article
Hit count: 380
There is a very handy set of 2d geometry utilities here.
The angleBetweenLines has a problem, though. The result is always positive. I need to detect both positive and negative angles, so if one line is 15 degrees "above" or "below" the other line, the shape obviously looks different.
The configuration I have is that one line remains stationary, while the other line rotates, and I need to understand what direction it is rotating in, by comparing it with the stationary line.
EDIT: in response to swestrup's comment below, the situation is actually that I have a single line, and I record its starting position. The line then rotates from its starting position, and I need to calculate the angle from its starting position to current position. E.g if it has rotated clockwise, it is positive rotation; if counterclockwise, then negative. (Or vice versa.)
How to improve the algorithm so it returns the angle as both positive or negative depending on how the lines are positioned?
© Stack Overflow or respective owner