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  • Can font substitutions in MS Word be controlled?

    - by Jukka K. Korpela
    Suppose that I am typing text in MS Word (any version) and I enter a character that does not exist in the font being used. Say, I’m using Times New Roman and I type 2300 Alt X, which turns to the diameter sign “?”, which does not exist in Times New Roman. MS Word picks it up from a different font, like Arial Unicode MS. This may mess up the typographic style, or line spacing. And this happens without notice. Perhaps the most inconvenient feature here is that MS Word does not automatically return to the original font. Subsequent text appears in the replacement font, unless the user sees what is happening and realizes that he needs to change the font. The question is: Can such substitutions be controlled, e.g. by specifying the font(s) to be used as backup fonts? If not, is there any reliable documentation about it?

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  • Practical mysql schema advice for eCommerce store - Products & Attributes

    - by Gravy
    I am currently planning my first eCommerce application (mySQL & Laravel Framework). I have various products, which all have different attributes. Describing products very simply, Some will have a manufacturer, some will not, some will have a diameter, others will have a width, height, depth and others will have a volume. Option 1: Create a master products table, and separate tables for specific product types (polymorphic relations). That way, I will not have any unnecessary null fields in the products table. Option 2: Create a products table, with all possible fields despite the fact that there will be a lot of null rows Option 3: Normalise so that each attribute type has it's own table. Option 4: Create an attributes table, as well as an attribute_values table with the value being varchar regardless of the actual data-type. The products table would have a many:many relationship with the attributes table. Option 5: Common attributes to all or most products put in the products table, and specific attributes to a particular category of product attached to the categories table. My thoughts are that I would like to be able to allow easy product filtering by these attributes and sorting. I would also want the frontend to be fast, less concern over the performance of the inserting and updating of product records. Im a bit overwhelmed with the vast implementation options, and cannot find a suitable answer in terms of the best method of approach. Could somebody point me in the right direction? In an ideal world, I would like to offer the following kind of functionality - http://www.glassesdirect.co.uk/products/ to my eCommerce store. As can be seen, in the sidebar, you can select an attribute the glasses to filter them. e.g. male / female or plastic / metal / titanium etc... Alternatively, should I just dump the mySql relational database idea and learn mongodb?

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  • DC Comics Identifies Krypton on the Star Map

    - by Jason Fitzpatrick
    This week Action Comics Superman #14 hits the stands and DC comics reveals the actual location of Kyrpton, delivered by none other than beloved astrophysicist Neil Tyson. Phil Plait at Bad Astronomy reports on the resolution of fans’ long standing curiosity about the location of Krypton: Well, that’s about to change. DC comics is releasing a new book this week – Action Comics Superman #14 – that finally reveals the answer to this stellar question. And they picked a special guest to reveal it: my old friend Neil Tyson. Actually, Neil did more than just appear in the comic: he was approached by DC to find a good star to fit the story. Red supergiants don’t work; they explode as supernovae when they are too young to have an advanced civilization rise on any orbiting planets. Red giants aren’t a great fit either; they can be old, but none is at the right distance to match the storyline. It would have to be a red dwarf: there are lots of them, they can be very old, and some are close enough to fit the plot. I won’t keep you in suspense: the star is LHS 2520, a red dwarf in the southern constellation of Corvus (at the center of the picture here). It’s an M3.5 dwarf, meaning it has about a quarter of the Sun’s mass, a third its diameter, roughly half the Sun’s temperature, and a luminosity of a mere 1% of our Sun’s. It’s only 27 light years away – very close on the scale of the galaxy – but such a dim bulb you need a telescope to see it at all (for any astronomers out there, the coordinates are RA: 12h 10m 5.77s, Dec: -15° 4m 17.9 s). 6 Ways Windows 8 Is More Secure Than Windows 7 HTG Explains: Why It’s Good That Your Computer’s RAM Is Full 10 Awesome Improvements For Desktop Users in Windows 8

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  • Extreme Optimization –Mathematical Constants and Basic Functions

    - by JoshReuben
    Machine constants The MachineConstants class - contains constants for floating-point arithmetic because the CLS System.Single and Double floating-point types do not follow the standard conventions and are useless. machine constants for the Double type: machine precision: Epsilon , SqrtEpsilon CubeRootEpsilon largest possible value: MaxDouble , SqrtMaxDouble, LogMaxDouble smallest Double-precision floating point number that is greater than zero: MinDouble , SqrtMinDouble , LogMinDouble A similar set of constants is available for the Single Datatype  Mathematical Constants The Constants class contains static fields for many mathematical constants and common expressions involving small integers – if you are doing thousands of iterations, you wouldn't want to calculate OneOverSqrtTwoPi , Sqrt17 or Log17 !!! Fundamental constants E - The base for the natural logarithm, e (2.718...). EulersConstant - (0.577...). GoldenRatio - (1.618...). Pi - the ratio between the circumference and the diameter of a circle (3.1415...). Expressions involving fundamental constants: TwoPi, PiOverTwo, PiOverFour, LogTwoPi, PiSquared, SqrPi, SqrtTwoPi, OneOverSqrtPi, OneOverSqrtTwoPi Square roots of small integers: Sqrt2, Sqrt3, Sqrt5, Sqrt7, Sqrt17 Logarithms of small integers: Log2, Log3, Log10, Log17, InvLog10  Elementary Functions The IterativeAlgorithm<T> class in the Extreme.Mathematics namespace defines many elementary functions that are missing from System.Math. Hyperbolic Trig Functions: Cosh, Coth, Csch, Sinh, Sech, Tanh Inverse Hyperbolic Trig Functions: Acosh, Acoth, Acsch, Asinh, Asech, Atanh Exponential, Logarithmic and Miscellaneous Functions: ExpMinus1 - The exponential function minus one, ex-1. Hypot - The hypotenuse of a right-angled triangle with specified sides. LambertW - Lambert's W function, the (real) solution W of x=WeW. Log1PlusX - The natural logarithm of 1+x. Pow - A number raised to an integer power.

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  • DIY Homemade Hybrid Rocket Engine [Video]

    - by Jason Fitzpatrick
    Remember the guy with the cool DIY astronaut ice cream build? He’s back with a mini hybrid rocket engine that runs off oxygen and acrylic. I built a small rocket engine for demonstration purposes. The engine is built from a 2″ diameter acrylic rod through which I drilled a 0.5″ hole. The oxygen at 80 psi or less is passed through the hole and then is forced through a convergent-divergent nozzle at the tail end. The nozzle’s throat is about 0.25″ and expands to 0.625″. I lit the engine by inserting a burning cotton swab (with wooden stick) while a small amount of oxygen was flowing. The acrylic catches fire very easily in a pure oxygen environment. The engine can be throttled and shut off completely, which is a major benefit to hybrid engine designs. Solid-fuel rockets cannot be throttled or shut off, which makes them difficult to control. [via Make] HTG Explains: What is the Windows Page File and Should You Disable It? How To Get a Better Wireless Signal and Reduce Wireless Network Interference How To Troubleshoot Internet Connection Problems

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  • XNA shield effect with a Primative sphere problem

    - by Sparky41
    I'm having issue with a shield effect i'm trying to develop. I want to do a shield effect that surrounds part of a model like this: http://i.imgur.com/jPvrf.png I currently got this: http://i.imgur.com/Jdin7.png (The red likes are a simple texture a black background with a red cross in it, for testing purposes: http://i.imgur.com/ODtzk.png where the smaller cross in the middle shows the contact point) This sphere is drawn via a primitive (DrawIndexedPrimitives) This is how i calculate the pieces of the sphere using a class i've called Sphere (this class is based off the code here: http://xbox.create.msdn.com/en-US/education/catalog/sample/primitives_3d) public class Sphere { // During the process of constructing a primitive model, vertex // and index data is stored on the CPU in these managed lists. List vertices = new List(); List indices = new List(); // Once all the geometry has been specified, the InitializePrimitive // method copies the vertex and index data into these buffers, which // store it on the GPU ready for efficient rendering. VertexBuffer vertexBuffer; IndexBuffer indexBuffer; BasicEffect basicEffect; public Vector3 position = Vector3.Zero; public Matrix RotationMatrix = Matrix.Identity; public Texture2D texture; /// <summary> /// Constructs a new sphere primitive, /// with the specified size and tessellation level. /// </summary> public Sphere(float diameter, int tessellation, Texture2D text, float up, float down, float portstar, float frontback) { texture = text; if (tessellation < 3) throw new ArgumentOutOfRangeException("tessellation"); int verticalSegments = tessellation; int horizontalSegments = tessellation * 2; float radius = diameter / 2; // Start with a single vertex at the bottom of the sphere. AddVertex(Vector3.Down * ((radius / up) + 1), Vector3.Down, Vector2.Zero);//bottom position5 // Create rings of vertices at progressively higher latitudes. for (int i = 0; i < verticalSegments - 1; i++) { float latitude = ((i + 1) * MathHelper.Pi / verticalSegments) - MathHelper.PiOver2; float dy = (float)Math.Sin(latitude / up);//(up)5 float dxz = (float)Math.Cos(latitude); // Create a single ring of vertices at this latitude. for (int j = 0; j < horizontalSegments; j++) { float longitude = j * MathHelper.TwoPi / horizontalSegments; float dx = (float)(Math.Cos(longitude) * dxz) / portstar;//port and starboard (right)2 float dz = (float)(Math.Sin(longitude) * dxz) * frontback;//front and back1.4 Vector3 normal = new Vector3(dx, dy, dz); AddVertex(normal * radius, normal, new Vector2(j, i)); } } // Finish with a single vertex at the top of the sphere. AddVertex(Vector3.Up * ((radius / down) + 1), Vector3.Up, Vector2.One);//top position5 // Create a fan connecting the bottom vertex to the bottom latitude ring. for (int i = 0; i < horizontalSegments; i++) { AddIndex(0); AddIndex(1 + (i + 1) % horizontalSegments); AddIndex(1 + i); } // Fill the sphere body with triangles joining each pair of latitude rings. for (int i = 0; i < verticalSegments - 2; i++) { for (int j = 0; j < horizontalSegments; j++) { int nextI = i + 1; int nextJ = (j + 1) % horizontalSegments; AddIndex(1 + i * horizontalSegments + j); AddIndex(1 + i * horizontalSegments + nextJ); AddIndex(1 + nextI * horizontalSegments + j); AddIndex(1 + i * horizontalSegments + nextJ); AddIndex(1 + nextI * horizontalSegments + nextJ); AddIndex(1 + nextI * horizontalSegments + j); } } // Create a fan connecting the top vertex to the top latitude ring. for (int i = 0; i < horizontalSegments; i++) { AddIndex(CurrentVertex - 1); AddIndex(CurrentVertex - 2 - (i + 1) % horizontalSegments); AddIndex(CurrentVertex - 2 - i); } //InitializePrimitive(graphicsDevice); } /// <summary> /// Adds a new vertex to the primitive model. This should only be called /// during the initialization process, before InitializePrimitive. /// </summary> protected void AddVertex(Vector3 position, Vector3 normal, Vector2 texturecoordinate) { vertices.Add(new VertexPositionNormal(position, normal, texturecoordinate)); } /// <summary> /// Adds a new index to the primitive model. This should only be called /// during the initialization process, before InitializePrimitive. /// </summary> protected void AddIndex(int index) { if (index > ushort.MaxValue) throw new ArgumentOutOfRangeException("index"); indices.Add((ushort)index); } /// <summary> /// Queries the index of the current vertex. This starts at /// zero, and increments every time AddVertex is called. /// </summary> protected int CurrentVertex { get { return vertices.Count; } } public void InitializePrimitive(GraphicsDevice graphicsDevice) { // Create a vertex declaration, describing the format of our vertex data. // Create a vertex buffer, and copy our vertex data into it. vertexBuffer = new VertexBuffer(graphicsDevice, typeof(VertexPositionNormal), vertices.Count, BufferUsage.None); vertexBuffer.SetData(vertices.ToArray()); // Create an index buffer, and copy our index data into it. indexBuffer = new IndexBuffer(graphicsDevice, typeof(ushort), indices.Count, BufferUsage.None); indexBuffer.SetData(indices.ToArray()); // Create a BasicEffect, which will be used to render the primitive. basicEffect = new BasicEffect(graphicsDevice); //basicEffect.EnableDefaultLighting(); } /// <summary> /// Draws the primitive model, using the specified effect. Unlike the other /// Draw overload where you just specify the world/view/projection matrices /// and color, this method does not set any renderstates, so you must make /// sure all states are set to sensible values before you call it. /// </summary> public void Draw(Effect effect) { GraphicsDevice graphicsDevice = effect.GraphicsDevice; // Set our vertex declaration, vertex buffer, and index buffer. graphicsDevice.SetVertexBuffer(vertexBuffer); graphicsDevice.Indices = indexBuffer; graphicsDevice.BlendState = BlendState.Additive; foreach (EffectPass effectPass in effect.CurrentTechnique.Passes) { effectPass.Apply(); int primitiveCount = indices.Count / 3; graphicsDevice.DrawIndexedPrimitives(PrimitiveType.TriangleList, 0, 0, vertices.Count, 0, primitiveCount); } graphicsDevice.BlendState = BlendState.Opaque; } /// <summary> /// Draws the primitive model, using a BasicEffect shader with default /// lighting. Unlike the other Draw overload where you specify a custom /// effect, this method sets important renderstates to sensible values /// for 3D model rendering, so you do not need to set these states before /// you call it. /// </summary> public void Draw(Camera camera, Color color) { // Set BasicEffect parameters. basicEffect.World = GetWorld(); basicEffect.View = camera.view; basicEffect.Projection = camera.projection; basicEffect.DiffuseColor = color.ToVector3(); basicEffect.TextureEnabled = true; basicEffect.Texture = texture; GraphicsDevice device = basicEffect.GraphicsDevice; device.DepthStencilState = DepthStencilState.Default; if (color.A < 255) { // Set renderstates for alpha blended rendering. device.BlendState = BlendState.AlphaBlend; } else { // Set renderstates for opaque rendering. device.BlendState = BlendState.Opaque; } // Draw the model, using BasicEffect. Draw(basicEffect); } public virtual Matrix GetWorld() { return /*world */ Matrix.CreateScale(1f) * RotationMatrix * Matrix.CreateTranslation(position); } } public struct VertexPositionNormal : IVertexType { public Vector3 Position; public Vector3 Normal; public Vector2 TextureCoordinate; /// <summary> /// Constructor. /// </summary> public VertexPositionNormal(Vector3 position, Vector3 normal, Vector2 textCoor) { Position = position; Normal = normal; TextureCoordinate = textCoor; } /// <summary> /// A VertexDeclaration object, which contains information about the vertex /// elements contained within this struct. /// </summary> public static readonly VertexDeclaration VertexDeclaration = new VertexDeclaration ( new VertexElement(0, VertexElementFormat.Vector3, VertexElementUsage.Position, 0), new VertexElement(12, VertexElementFormat.Vector3, VertexElementUsage.Normal, 0), new VertexElement(24, VertexElementFormat.Vector2, VertexElementUsage.TextureCoordinate, 0) ); VertexDeclaration IVertexType.VertexDeclaration { get { return VertexPositionNormal.VertexDeclaration; } } } A simple call to the class to initialise it. The Draw method is called in the master draw method in the Gamecomponent. My current thoughts on this are: The direction of the weapon hitting the ship is used to get the middle position for the texture Wrap a texture around the drawn sphere based on this point of contact Problem is i'm not sure how to do this. Can anyone help or if you have a better idea please tell me i'm open for opinion? :-) Thanks.

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  • Optimal sprite size for rotations

    - by Panda Pajama
    I am making a sprite based game, and I have a bunch of images that I get in a ridiculously large resolution and I scale them to the desired sprite size (for example 64x64 pixels) before converting them to a game resource, so when draw my sprite inside the game, I don't have to scale it. However, if I rotate this small sprite inside the game (engine agnostically), some destination pixels will get interpolated, and the sprite will look smudged. This is of course dependent on the rotation angle as well as the interpolation algorithm, but regardless, there is not enough data to correctly sample a specific destination pixel. So there are two solutions I can think of. The first is to use the original huge image, rotate it to the desired angles, and then downscale all the reaulting variations, and put them in an atlas, which has the advantage of being quite simple to implement, but naively consumes twice as much sprite space for each rotation (each rotation must be inscribed in a circle whose diameter is the diagonal of the original sprite's rectangle, whose area is twice of that original rectangle, supposing square sprites). It also has the disadvantage of only having a predefined set of rotations available, which may be okay or not depending on the game. So the other choice would be to store a larger image, and rotate and downscale while rendering, which leads to my question. What is the optimal size for this sprite? Optimal meaning that a larger image will have no effect in the resulting image. This is definitely dependent on the image size, the amount of desired rotations without data loss down to 1/256, which is the minimum representable color difference. I am looking for a theoretical general answer to this problem, because trying a bunch of sizes may be okay, but is far from optimal.

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  • Sampling Heightmap Edges for Normal map

    - by pl12
    I use a Sobel filter to generate normal maps from procedural height maps. The heightmaps are 258x258 pixels. I scale my texture coordinates like so: texCoord = (texCoord * (256/258)) + (1/258) Yet even with this I am left with the following problem: As you can see the edges of the normal map still proves to be problematic. Putting the texture wrap mode to "clamp" also proved no help. EDIT: The Sobel Filter function by sampling the 8 surrounding pixels around a given pixel so that a derivative can be calculated in order to find the "normal" of the given pixel. The texture coordinates are instanced once per quad (for the quadtree that makes up the world) and are created as follows (it is quite possible that the problem results from the way I scale and offset the texCoords as seen above): Java: for(int i = 0; i<vertices.length; i++){ Vector2f coord = new Vector2f((vertices[i].x)/(worldSize), (vertices[i].z)/( worldSize)); texCoords[i] = coord; } the quad used for input here rests on the X0Z plane. 'worldSize' is the diameter of the planet. No negative texCoords are seen as the quad used for input for this method is not centered around the origin. Is there something I am missing here? Thanks.

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  • Actionscript: Why is drawRoundRectComplex() not documented?

    - by Chunk1978
    in studying actionscript 3's graphics class, i've come across the undocumented drawRoundRectComplex() method. it's a variant of drawRoundRect() but with 8 parameters, the final four being the diameter of each corner (x, y, width, height, top left, top right, bottom left, bottom right). //example var sp:Sprite = new Sprite(); sp.graphics.lineStyle(1, 0x000000); sp.graphics.drawRoundRectComplex(0, 0, 100, 50, 10, 20, 0, 10); addChild(sp); this seems to be a pretty useful method, so i'm just curious if anyone knows of any reasons why adobe chose not to document it?

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  • Highlight row of form when input is focussed

    - by Jeepstone
    I have the following piece of Mootools 1.11 code (not upgradable as this is within Joomla), which I want to highlight the form row, when an item within it is focussed. However, this doesn't work. I need to know how to access the parent div of the form item. window.addEvent('domready', function() { var list = $$('#ChronoContact_lensorder div.formrow'); list.each(function(element) { var fx = new Fx.Styles(element, {duration:200, wait:false}); element.addEvent('focus', function(){ fx.start({ 'background-color': '#e6f0f2', color: '#FFF' }); }); element.addEvent('focus', function(){ fx.start({ 'background-color': '#FFF', 'color': '#2F9AD0' }); }); }); }); HTML is: <div class="formrow"> <label for="ud">Uncut Diameter:</label> <input type="text" id="ud" name="ud" /> </div> Thanks

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  • Strange rendering in XNA/Monogame

    - by Gerhman
    I am trying to render G-Code generated for a 3d-printer as the printed product by reading the file as line segments and the drawing cylinders with the diameter of the filament around the segment. I think I have managed to do this part right because the vertex I am sending to the graphics device appear to have been processed correctly. My problem I think lies somewhere in the rendering. What basically happens is that when I start rotating my model in the X or Y axis then it renders perfectly for half of the rotation but then for the other half it has this weird effect where you start seeing through the outer filament into some of the shapes inside. This effect is the strongest with X rotations though. Here is a picture of the part of the rotation that looks correct: And here is one that looks horrible: I am still quite new to XNA and/Monogame and 3d programming as a whole. I have no idea what could possibly be causing this and even less of an idea of what this type of behavior is called. I am guessing this has something to do with rendering so have added the code for that part: protected override void Draw(GameTime gameTime) { GraphicsDevice.Clear(Color.Black); basicEffect.World = world; basicEffect.View = view; basicEffect.Projection = projection; basicEffect.VertexColorEnabled = true; basicEffect.EnableDefaultLighting(); GraphicsDevice.SetVertexBuffer(vertexBuffer); RasterizerState rasterizerState = new RasterizerState(); rasterizerState.CullMode = CullMode.CullClockwiseFace; rasterizerState.ScissorTestEnable = true; GraphicsDevice.RasterizerState = rasterizerState; foreach (EffectPass pass in basicEffect.CurrentTechnique.Passes) { pass.Apply(); GraphicsDevice.DrawPrimitives(PrimitiveType.TriangleList, 0, vertexBuffer.VertexCount); } base.Draw(gameTime); } I don't know if it could be because I am shading something that does not really have a texture. I am using this custom vertex declaration I found on some tutorial that allows me to store a vertex with a position, color and normal: public struct VertexPositionColorNormal { public Vector3 Position; public Color Color; public Vector3 Normal; public readonly static VertexDeclaration VertexDeclaration = new VertexDeclaration ( new VertexElement(0, VertexElementFormat.Vector3, VertexElementUsage.Position, 0), new VertexElement(sizeof(float) * 3, VertexElementFormat.Color, VertexElementUsage.Color, 0), new VertexElement(sizeof(float) * 3 + 4, VertexElementFormat.Vector3, VertexElementUsage.Normal, 0) ); } If any of you have ever seen this type of thing please help. Also, if you think that the problem might lay somewhere else in my code then please just request what part you would like to see in the comments section.

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  • Need help with a complex 3d scene (using Ogre and bullet)

    - by Matthias
    In my setup there is a box with a hole on one side, and a freely movable "stick" (or bar, tube). This stick can be inserted/moved through the hole into the box. This hole is exactly as wide as the diameter of the stick. In reality, when you would now hold the end of the stick in your hand and move the hand left/right or up/down, the other end of the stick, which is inside the box, would move into the opposite direction of your hand movement (because the stick is affixed at the pivot point where it is entering the box through the hole). (I hope you understand what I mean so far.) Now I need to simulate such a setup in a 3d program. I have already successfully developed an Ogre3d framework for this application, including bullet. But what I don't know is how I can implement in my program what I have described above. This application must include two more features: The scene camera is attached to the end of the stick that is inserted into the box. So when the user would move the mouse (to control "his" end of the stick outside the box), then the camera attached to the stick would move in the opposite direction, as described above. The stick has some length, and the user can push it further into the box, or pull it closer to him again. That means of course that the max. radius on which the end of the stick inside the box can move depends on how far the stick is pushed into the box. Thus, the more the stick is pushed into the box, the larger the max. radius of this end of the stick with the camera will be. I understand this is maybe quite a complex thing, so I don't expect any real source code here. I already have the Ogre and bullet part as said up and running, as well as a camera attached to the stick. This works fine. What I don't know though is how I can simulate the setup described above. Especially the requirement that the stick is affixed at the position of the hole on the box, where it is inserted into the box. Any ideas how I could approach to implement the described setup?

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  • Question about BoundingSpheres and Ray intersections

    - by NDraskovic
    I'm working on a XNA project (not really a game) and I'm having some trouble with picking algorithm. I have a few types of 3D models that I draw to the screen, and one of them is a switch. So I'm trying to make a picking algorithm that would enable the user to click on the switch and that would trigger some other function. The problem is that the BoundingSphere.Intersect() method always returns null as result. This is the code I'm using: In the declaration section: ` //Basic matrices private Matrix world = Matrix.CreateTranslation(new Vector3(0, 0, 0)); private Matrix view = Matrix.CreateLookAt(new Vector3(10, 10, 10), new Vector3(0, 0, 0), Vector3.UnitY); private Matrix projection = Matrix.CreatePerspectiveFieldOfView(MathHelper.ToRadians(45), 800f / 600f, 0.01f, 100f); //Collision detection variables Viewport mainViewport; List<BoundingSphere> spheres = new List<BoundingSphere>(); Ray ControlRay; Vector3 nearPoint, farPoint, nearPlane, farPlane, direction; ` And then in the Update method: ` nearPlane = new Vector3((float)Mouse.GetState().X, (float)Mouse.GetState().Y, 0.0f); farPlane = new Vector3((float)Mouse.GetState().X, (float)Mouse.GetState().Y, 10.0f); nearPoint = GraphicsDevice.Viewport.Unproject(nearPlane, projection, view, world); farPoint = GraphicsDevice.Viewport.Unproject(farPlane, projection, view, world); direction = farPoint - nearPoint; direction.Normalize(); ControlRay = new Ray(nearPoint, direction); if (spheres.Count != 0) { for (int i = 0; i < spheres.Count; i++) { if (spheres[i].Intersects(ControlRay) != null) { Window.Title = spheres[i].Center.ToString(); } else { Window.Title = "Empty"; } } ` The "spheres" list gets filled when the 3D object data gets loaded (I read it from a .txt file). For every object marked as switch (I use simple numbers to determine which object is to be drawn), a BoundingSphere is created (center is on the coordinates of the 3D object, and the diameter is always the same), and added to the list. The objects are drawn normally (and spheres.Count is not 0), I can see them on the screen, but the Window title always says "Empty" (of course this is just for testing purposes, I will add the real function when I get positive results) meaning that there is no intersection between the ControlRay and any of the bounding spheres. I think that my basic matrices (world, view and projection) are making some problems, but I cant figure out what. Please help.

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  • Algorithm to Find the Aggregate Mass of "Granola Bar"-Like Structures?

    - by Stuart Robbins
    I'm a planetary science researcher and one project I'm working on is N-body simulations of Saturn's rings. The goal of this particular study is to watch as particles clump together under their own self-gravity and measure the aggregate mass of the clumps versus the mean velocity of all particles in the cell. We're trying to figure out if this can explain some observations made by the Cassini spacecraft during the Saturnian summer solstice when large structures were seen casting shadows on the nearly edge-on rings. Below is a screenshot of what any given timestep looks like. (Each particle is 2 m in diameter and the simulation cell itself is around 700 m across.) The code I'm using already spits out the mean velocity at every timestep. What I need to do is figure out a way to determine the mass of particles in the clumps and NOT the stray particles between them. I know every particle's position, mass, size, etc., but I don't know easily that, say, particles 30,000-40,000 along with 102,000-105,000 make up one strand that to the human eye is obvious. So, the algorithm I need to write would need to be a code with as few user-entered parameters as possible (for replicability and objectivity) that would go through all the particle positions, figure out what particles belong to clumps, and then calculate the mass. It would be great if it could do it for "each" clump/strand as opposed to everything over the cell, but I don't think I actually need it to separate them out. The only thing I was thinking of was doing some sort of N2 distance calculation where I'd calculate the distance between every particle and if, say, the closest 100 particles were within a certain distance, then that particle would be considered part of a cluster. But that seems pretty sloppy and I was hoping that you CS folks and programmers might know of a more elegant solution? Edited with My Solution: What I did was to take a sort of nearest-neighbor / cluster approach and do the quick-n-dirty N2 implementation first. So, take every particle, calculate distance to all other particles, and the threshold for in a cluster or not was whether there were N particles within d distance (two parameters that have to be set a priori, unfortunately, but as was said by some responses/comments, I wasn't going to get away with not having some of those). I then sped it up by not sorting distances but simply doing an order N search and increment a counter for the particles within d, and that sped stuff up by a factor of 6. Then I added a "stupid programmer's tree" (because I know next to nothing about tree codes). I divide up the simulation cell into a set number of grids (best results when grid size ˜7 d) where the main grid lines up with the cell, one grid is offset by half in x and y, and the other two are offset by 1/4 in ±x and ±y. The code then divides particles into the grids, then each particle N only has to have distances calculated to the other particles in that cell. Theoretically, if this were a real tree, I should get order N*log(N) as opposed to N2 speeds. I got somewhere between the two, where for a 50,000-particle sub-set I got a 17x increase in speed, and for a 150,000-particle cell, I got a 38x increase in speed. 12 seconds for the first, 53 seconds for the second, 460 seconds for a 500,000-particle cell. Those are comparable speeds to how long the code takes to run the simulation 1 timestep forward, so that's reasonable at this point. Oh -- and it's fully threaded, so it'll take as many processors as I can throw at it.

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  • List of objects or parallel arrays of properties?

    - by Headcrab
    The question is, basically: what would be more preferable, both performance-wise and design-wise - to have a list of objects of a Python class or to have several lists of numerical properties? I am writing some sort of a scientific simulation which involves a rather large system of interacting particles. For simplicity, let's say we have a set of balls bouncing inside a box so each ball has a number of numerical properties, like x-y-z-coordinates, diameter, mass, velocity vector and so on. How to store the system better? Two major options I can think of are: to make a class "Ball" with those properties and some methods, then store a list of objects of the class, e. g. [b1, b2, b3, ...bn, ...], where for each bn we can access bn.x, bn.y, bn.mass and so on; to make an array of numbers for each property, then for each i-th "ball" we can access it's 'x' coordinate as xs[i], 'y' coordinate as ys[i], 'mass' as masses[i] and so on; To me it seems that the first option represents a better design. The second option looks somewhat uglier, but might be better in terms of performance, and it could be easier to use it with numpy and scipy, which I try to use as much as I can. I am still not sure if Python will be fast enough, so it may be necessary to rewrite it in C++ or something, after initial prototyping in Python. Would the choice of data representation be different for C/C++? What about a hybrid approach, e.g. Python with C++ extension?

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  • django class with an array of "parent" foreignkeys issue

    - by user298032
    Let's say I have a class called Fruit with child classes of the different kinds of Fruit with their own specific attributes, and I want to collect them in a FruitBasket: class Fruit(models.Model):     type = models.CharField(max_length=120,default='banana',choices=FRUIT_TYPES)     ... class Banana(Fruit):     """banana (fruit type)"""     length = models.IntegerField(blank=True, null=True)     ... class Orange(Fruit):     """orange (fruit type)"""     diameter = models.IntegerField(blank=True, null=True)     ... class FruitBasket(models.Model):     fruits = models.ManyToManyField(Fruit)     ... The problem I seem to be having is when I retrieve and inspect the Fruits in a FruitBasket, I only retrieve the Fruit base class and can't get at the Fruit child class attributes. I think I understand what is happening--when the array is retrieved from the database, the only fields that are retrieved are the Fruit base class fields. But is there some way to get the child class attributes as well without multiple expensive database transactions? (For example, I could get the array, then retrieve the child Fruit classes by the id of each array element). thanks in advance, Chuck

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  • How to contain the Deepwater Horizon oil spill? [closed]

    - by Yarin
    This is obviously not programming, but it's important and we're smart people, so let's give it a shot. (BP has actually begun soliciting suggestions for how to deal with the crisis http://www.deepwaterhorizonresponse.com/go/doc/2931/546759/, confirming that they don't have a clue) I'll start with my own proposal... Anchored Chute: A large-diameter, collapsible, flexible tube/hose with a wide mouth on one end is anchored over the leak. There's no need for a hermetic seal, the opening just needs to be big enough to form a canopy over the leak area. The rest of the tubing can just be dumped on the sea floor. Since oil is denser than water, the oily water that flows into the mouth eventually inflates the tube and raises the opposite end to the surface, where it can be collected (Like those inflatable dancing air socks at car dealerships). Further buoyancy could be added with floats attached to the tube at intervals. I think this method would not be as susceptible to the problems BP had with the containment dome, where a rigid, metal casing froze up with crystallized hydrates, as we would not be trying to contain the full pressure of the well, but would be using the natural buoyancy of the oil to channel its flow, and with a much larger opening.

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  • Delphi: Using Enumerators to filter TList<T: class> by class type?

    - by afrazier
    Okay, this might be confusing. What I'm trying to do is use an enumerator to only return certain items in a generic list based on class type. Given the following hierarchy: type TShapeClass = class of TShape; TShape = class(TObject) private FId: Integer; public function ToString: string; override; property Id: Integer read FId write FId; end; TCircle = class(TShape) private FDiameter: Integer; public property Diameter: Integer read FDiameter write FDiameter; end; TSquare = class(TShape) private FSideLength: Integer; public property SideLength: Integer read FSideLength write FSideLength; end; TShapeList = class(TObjectList<TShape>) end; How can I extend TShapeList such that I can do something similar to the following: procedure Foo; var ShapeList: TShapeList; Shape: TShape; Circle: TCircle; Square: TSquare; begin // Create ShapeList and fill with TCircles and TSquares for Circle in ShapeList<TCircle> do begin // do something with each TCircle in ShapeList end; for Square in ShapeList<TSquare> do begin // do something with each TSquare in ShapeList end; for Shape in ShapeList<TShape> do begin // do something with every object in TShapeList end; end; I've tried extending TShapeList using an adapted version of Primoz Gabrijelcic's bit on Parameterized Enumerators using a factory record as follows: type TShapeList = class(TObjectList<TShape>) public type TShapeFilterEnumerator<T: TShape> = record private FShapeList: TShapeList; FClass: TShapeClass; FIndex: Integer; function GetCurrent: T; public constructor Create(ShapeList: TShapeList); function MoveNext: Boolean; property Current: T read GetCurrent; end; TShapeFilterFactory<T: TShape> = record private FShapeList: TShapeList; public constructor Create(ShapeList: TShapeList); function GetEnumerator: TShapeFilterEnumerator<T>; end; function FilteredEnumerator<T: TShape>: TShapeFilterFactory<T>; end; Then I modified Foo to be: procedure Foo; var ShapeList: TShapeList; Shape: TShape; Circle: TCircle; Square: TSquare; begin // Create ShapeList and fill with TCircles and TSquares for Circle in ShapeList.FilteredEnumerator<TCircle> do begin // do something with each TCircle in ShapeList end; for Square in ShapeList.FilteredEnumerator<TSquare> do begin // do something with each TSquare in ShapeList end; for Shape in ShapeList.FilteredEnumerator<TShape> do begin // do something with every object in TShapeList end; end; However, Delphi 2010 is throwing an error when I try to compile Foo about Incompatible types: TCircle and TShape. If I comment out the TCircle loop, then I get a similar error about TSquare. If I comment the TSquare loop out as well, the code compiles and works. Well, it works in the sense that it enumerates every object since they all descend from TShape. The strange thing is that the line number that the compiler indicates is 2 lines beyond the end of my file. In my demo project, it indicated line 177, but there's only 175 lines. Is there any way to make this work? I'd like to be able to assign to Circle directly without going through any typecasts or checking in my for loop itself.

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  • Mass Ball-to-Ball Collision Handling (as in, lots of balls)

    - by BlueThen
    Update: Found out that I was using the radius as the diameter, which was why the mtd was overcompensating. Hi, StackOverflow. I've written a Processing program awhile back simulating ball physics. Basically, I have a large number of balls (1000), with gravity turned on. Detection works great, but my issue is that they start acting weird when they're bouncing against other balls in all directions. I'm pretty confident this involves the handling. For the most part, I'm using Jay Conrod's code. One part that's different is if (distance > 1.0) return; which I've changed to if (distance < 1.0) return; because the collision wasn't even being performed with the first bit of code, I'm guessing that's a typo. The balls overlap when I use his code, which isn't what I was looking for. My attempt to fix it was to move the balls to the edge of each other: float angle = atan2(y - collider.y, x - collider.x); float distance = dist(x,y, balls[ID2].x,balls[ID2].y); x = collider.x + radius * cos(angle); y = collider.y + radius * sin(angle); This isn't correct, I'm pretty sure of that. I tried the correction algorithm in the previous ball-to-ball topic: // get the mtd Vector2d delta = (position.subtract(ball.position)); float d = delta.getLength(); // minimum translation distance to push balls apart after intersecting Vector2d mtd = delta.multiply(((getRadius() + ball.getRadius())-d)/d); // resolve intersection -- // inverse mass quantities float im1 = 1 / getMass(); float im2 = 1 / ball.getMass(); // push-pull them apart based off their mass position = position.add(mtd.multiply(im1 / (im1 + im2))); ball.position = ball.position.subtract(mtd.multiply(im2 / (im1 + im2))); except my version doesn't use vectors, and every ball's weight is 1. The resulting code I get is this: PVector delta = new PVector(collider.x - x, collider.y - y); float d = delta.mag(); PVector mtd = new PVector(delta.x * ((radius + collider.radius - d) / d), delta.y * ((radius + collider.radius - d) / d)); // push-pull apart based on mass x -= mtd.x * 0.5; y -= mtd.y * 0.5; collider.x += mtd.x * 0.5; collider.y += mtd.y * 0.5; This code seems to over-correct collisions. Which doesn't make sense to me because in no other way do I modify the x and y values of each ball, other than this. Some other part of my code could be wrong, but I don't know. Here's the snippet of the entire ball-to-ball collision handling I'm using: if (alreadyCollided.contains(new Integer(ID2))) // if the ball has already collided with this, then we don't need to reperform the collision algorithm return; Ball collider = (Ball) objects.get(ID2); PVector collision = new PVector(x - collider.x, y - collider.y); float distance = collision.mag(); if (distance == 0) { collision = new PVector(1,0); distance = 1; } if (distance < 1) return; PVector velocity = new PVector(vx,vy); PVector velocity2 = new PVector(collider.vx, collider.vy); collision.div(distance); // normalize the distance float aci = velocity.dot(collision); float bci = velocity2.dot(collision); float acf = bci; float bcf = aci; vx += (acf - aci) * collision.x; vy += (acf - aci) * collision.y; collider.vx += (bcf - bci) * collision.x; collider.vy += (bcf - bci) * collision.y; alreadyCollided.add(new Integer(ID2)); collider.alreadyCollided.add(new Integer(ID)); PVector delta = new PVector(collider.x - x, collider.y - y); float d = delta.mag(); PVector mtd = new PVector(delta.x * ((radius + collider.radius - d) / d), delta.y * ((radius + collider.radius - d) / d)); // push-pull apart based on mass x -= mtd.x * 0.2; y -= mtd.y * 0.2; collider.x += mtd.x * 0.2; collider.y += mtd.y * 0.2; Thanks. (Apologies for lack of sources, stackoverflow thinks I'm a spammer)

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