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  • Problems with moving 2D circle/box collision detection

    - by dario3004
    This is my first game ever and I'm a newbie in computer physics. I've got this code for the collision detection and it works fine for BOTTOM and TOP collision.It miss the collision detection with the paddle's edge and angles so I've (roughly) tried to implement it. Main method that is called for bouncing, it checks if it bounce with wall, or with top (+ right/left side) or with bottom (+ right/left side): protected void handleBounces(float px, float py) { handleWallBounce(px, py); if(mBall.y < getHeight()/4){ if (handleRedFastBounce(mRed, px, py)) return; if (handleRightSideBounce(mRed,px,py)) return; if (handleLeftSideBounce(mRed,px,py)) return; } if(mBall.y > getHeight()/4 * 3){ if (handleBlueFastBounce(mBlue, px, py)) return; if (handleRightSideBounce(mBlue,px,py)) return; if (handleLeftSideBounce(mBlue,px,py)) return; } } This is the code for the BOTTOM bounce: protected boolean handleRedFastBounce(Paddle paddle, float px, float py) { if (mBall.goingUp() == false) return false; // next position tx = mBall.x; ty = mBall.y - mBall.getRadius(); // actual position ptx = px; pty = py - mBall.getRadius(); dyp = ty - paddle.getBottom(); xc = tx + (tx - ptx) * dyp / (ty - pty); if ((ty < paddle.getBottom() && pty > paddle.getBottom() && xc > paddle.getLeft() && xc < paddle.getRight())) { mBall.x = xc; mBall.y = paddle.getBottom() + mBall.getRadius(); mBall.bouncePaddle(paddle); playSound(mPaddleSFX); increaseDifficulty(); return true; } else return false; } As long as I understood it should be something like this: So I tried to make the "left side" and "right side" bounce method: protected boolean handleLeftSideBounce(Paddle paddle, float px, float py){ // next position tx = mBall.x + mBall.getRadius(); ty = mBall.y; // actual position ptx = px + mBall.getRadius(); pty = py; dyp = tx - paddle.getLeft(); yc = ty + (pty - ty) * dyp / (ptx - tx); if (ptx < paddle.getLeft() && tx > paddle.getLeft()){ System.out.println("left side bounce1"); System.out.println("yc: " + yc + "top: " + paddle.getTop() + " bottom: " + paddle.getBottom()); if (yc > paddle.getTop() && yc < paddle.getBottom()){ System.out.println("left side bounce2"); mBall.y = yc; mBall.x = paddle.getLeft() - mBall.getRadius(); mBall.bouncePaddle(paddle); playSound(mPaddleSFX); increaseDifficulty(); return true; } } return false; } I think I'm quite near to the solution but I'm having big troubles with the new "yc" formula. I tried so many versions of it but since I don't know the theory behind it I can't adjust for the Y axis. Since the Y axis is inverted I even tried this: yc = ty - (pty - ty) * dyp / (ptx - tx); I tried Googling it but I can't seem to find a solution for it. Also this method fails when ball touches the angle and I don't think is a nice way because it just test "one" point of the ball and probably there will be many cases in which the ball won't bounce.

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  • Getting Recognition for Open-Source Computer Language Projects

    - by Jon Purdy
    I like language a lot, so I write a lot of language-based solutions for programming, automation, and data definition. I'm very much a believer in open-source software, so lately I've started to push these projects to Sourceforge when I start them. I feel that these tools could be quite valuable in the right hands, and that they fill niches that otherwise go unfilled. The trouble, for me, is gaining recognition. No matter how useful the software I write, after a certain point I can no longer come up with anything to add or improve. Basically no one but me uses it, so it's not being attacked from enough angles to discover any new weaknesses. I cannot work on a project that doesn't have anything to do, but I won't have anything to do unless I gain recognition by working on it! This is greatly discouraging. It's like giving what you think is a really thoughtful gift to someone who just isn't paying attention. So I'm looking for advice on how to network and disseminate information about my projects so that they don't fizzle out like this. Are there any sites, newsgroups, or mailing lists that I've been completely missing?

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  • Plotting an Arc in Discrete Steps

    - by phobos51594
    Good afternoon, Background My question relates to the plotting of an arbitrary arc in space using discrete steps. It is unique, however, in that I am not drawing to a canvas in the typical sense. The firmware I am designing is for a gcode interpreter for a CNC mill that will translate commands into stepper motor movements. Now, I have already found a similar question on this very site, but the methodology suggested (Bresenham's Algorithm) appears to be incompatable for moving an object in space, as it only relies on the calculation of one octant of a circle which is then mirrored about the remaining axes of symmetry. Furthermore, the prescribed method of calculation an arc between two arbitrary angles relies on trigonometry (I am implementing on a microcontroller and would like to avoid costly trig functions, if possible) and simply not taking the steps that are out of the range. Finally, the algorithm only is designed to work in one rotational direction (e.g. counterclockwise). Question So, on to the actual question: Does anyone know of a general-purpose algorithm that can be used to "draw" an arbitrary arc in discrete steps while still giving respect to angular direction (CW / CCW)? The final implementation will be done in C, but the language for the purpose of the question is irrelevant. Thank you in advance. References S.O post on drawing a simple circle using Bresenham's Algorithm: "Drawing" an arc in discrete x-y steps Wiki page describing Bresenham's Algorithm for a circle http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midpoint_circle_algorithm Gcode instructions to be implemented (see. G2 and G3) http://linuxcnc.org/docs/html/gcode.html

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  • Optimally place a pie slice in a rectangle.

    - by Lisa
    Given a rectangle (w, h) and a pie slice with start angle and end angle, how can I place the slice optimally in the rectangle so that it fills the room best (from an optical point of view, not mathematically speaking)? I'm currently placing the pie slice's center in the center of the rectangle and use the half of the smaller of both rectangle sides as the radius. This leaves plenty of room for certain configurations. Examples to make clear what I'm after, based on the precondition that the slice is drawn like a unit circle: A start angle of 0 and an end angle of PI would lead to a filled lower half of the rectangle and an empty upper half. A good solution here would be to move the center up by 1/4*h. A start angle of 0 and an end angle of PI/2 would lead to a filled bottom right quarter of the rectangle. A good solution here would be to move the center point to the top left of the rectangle and to set the radius to the smaller of both rectangle sides. This is fairly easy for the cases I've sketched but it becomes complicated when the start and end angles are arbitrary. I am searching for an algorithm which determines center of the slice and radius in a way that fills the rectangle best. Pseudo code would be great since I'm not a big mathematician.

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  • Linking Apache to Tomcat with multiple domains.

    - by Royce Thigpen
    Okay, so I've been working for a while on this, and have been searching, but so far I have not found any answers that actually answer what I want to know. I'm a little bit at the end of my rope with this one, but I'm hoping I can figure this out sometime soon. So I have Apache 2 installed and serving up standard webpages, but I also have that linked to a Tomcat instance for one of my domains currently supported. However, I want to add another domain to the server via Apache that points to a separate code base from the one I already have. I have been coming at this from several different angles, and I have determined that I just don't know enough about setting up these servers to really do what I want to do. Little information on my server: Currently running a single Tomcat5.5 instance with Apache 2, using mod_jk to connect them together. I have a worker in workers.properties that points it's "host" field to "localhost" with the correct port my Tomcat instance, so that all works. In my Tomcat server.xml file, I have a host defined as "localhost" that points at my webapp that I am currently serving up, with that host set as the defaultHost as well. One thought I had was that I could add a new worker with a different host than "localhost" (i.e. host2) and then define a new host in my server.xml file called "host2" to match it, but after reading around some on the internet, It seems the "host" of the worker must point to a server, and not a hostname in the Tomcat instance, is this correct? Again, a simple rundown of what I want: Setup in apache/tomcat combo such that www.domain1.com points at "webapp1" and www.domain2.com points at "webapp2".

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  • Vector deltas and moving in unknown areas

    - by dekz
    Hi All, I was in need of a little math help that I can't seem to find the answer to, any links to documentation would be greatly appreciated. Heres my situation, I have no idea where I am in this maze, but I need to move around and find my way back to the start. I was thinking of implementing a waypoint list of places i've been offset from my start at 0,0. This is a 2D cartesian plane. I've been given 2 properties, my translation speed from 0-1 and my rotation speed from -1 to 1. -1 is very left and +1 is very right. These are speed and not angles so thats where my problem lies. If I'm given 0 as a translation speed and 0.2 I will continually turn to my right at a slow speed. How do I figure out the offsets given these 2 variables? I can store it every time I take a 'step'. I just need to figure out the offsets in x and y terms given the translations and rotation speeds. And the rotation to get to those points. Any help is appreciated.

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  • How do I know when to increase or decrease angle to get a specific angle?

    - by Thomas
    Hi. I am programming a game and I have come to a very hard spot. Basically I have a circle and I have 2 angles on this circle. Angle 1 (A) is a point I want angle 2 (B) to go to. During my game every frame I need to check weither or not to increase or decrease my angle value by a certain amount (speed) to eventually reach the first angle. My question is how do I do this? I tried doing this but I don't seem to be doing it right. bool increase = false; float B = [self radiansToDegrees:tankAngle]; float A = [self radiansToDegrees:tankDestinationAngle]; float newAngle = B; if(B < A) { float C = B - (360 - A); float D = A - B; if(C < D) increase = false; else increase = true; } else if(B A) { float C = B - A; float D = A - (360 - B); if(C < D) increase = false; else increase = true; } if(increase) { newAngle += 1.0; } else { newAngle -= 1.0; } if(newAngle 360.0) { newAngle = 0 + (newAngle - 360.0); } else if(newAngle < 0.0) { newAngle = 360 + newAngle; } if(newAngle == 0) newAngle = 360; newAngle = [self degreesToRadians:newAngle]; [self setTanksProperPositionRotation:newAngle]; The basic effect I am trying to achieve is when the user makes a new point, which would be angle 1, angle 2 would move towards angle 1 choosing the fastest direction. I think I have spent around 4 hours trying to figure this out.

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  • Changing direction of rotation Pygame

    - by czl
    How would you change the direction of a rotating image/rect in Pygame? Applying positive and negative degree values works but it seems to only be able to rotate one direction throughout my window. Is there a way to ensure a change in direction of rotation? Perhaps change up rotation of a spinning image every 5 seconds, or if able to change the direction of the spin when hitting a X or Y axis. I've added some code below. It seems like switching movement directions is easy with rect.move_ip as long as I specify a speed and have location clause, it does what I want. Unfortunately rotation is't like that. Here I'l adding angles to make sure it spins, but no matter what I try, I'm unable to negate the rotation. def rotate_image(self): #rotate image orig_rect = self.image.get_rect() rot_image = pygame.transform.rotate(self.image, self.angle) rot_rect = orig_rect.copy() rot_rect.center = rot_image.get_rect().center rot_image = rot_image.subsurface(rot_rect).copy() return rot_image def render(self): self.screen.fill(self.bg_color) self.rect.move_ip(0,5) #Y axis movement at 5 px per frame self.angle += 5 #add 5 anglewhen the rect has not hit one of the window self.angle %= 360 if self.rect.left < 0 or self.rect.right > self.width: self.speed[0] = -self.speed[0] self.angle = -self.angle #tried to invert the angle self.angle -= 5 #trying to negate the angle rotation self.angle %= 360 self.screen.blit(self.rotate_image(),self.rect) pygame.display.flip() I would really like to know how to invert rotation of a image. You may provide your own examples.

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  • Simulate Golf Game Strategy

    - by Mitchel Sellers
    I am working on what at best could be considered a "primitive" golf game, where after a certain bit of randomness is introduced I need to play out a hole of golf. The hole is static and I am not concerned about the UI aspect as I just have to draw a line on a graphic of the hole after the ball has been hit showing where it traveled. I'm looking for input on thoughts of how to manage the "logic" side of the puzzle, below are some of my thoughts on the matter, input, suggestions, or references are greatly appreciated. Map out the hole into an array with a specific amount of precision, noting the type of surface: out of bounds, fairway, rough, green, sand, water, and most important the hole. Map out "regions" and if the ball is contained inside one of these regions setup parameters for "maximum" angle of departure. (For example the first part of the hole the shot must be between certain angles Using the current placement of the ball, and the region contained in #2, define a routine to randomly select the shooting angle, and power then move the ball, adjust the trajectory and move again. I know this isn't the "most elegant" solution, but in reality, we are looking for a quick and dirty solution, as I just have to do this a few times, set it and forget it afterward. From a languages perspective I'll be using ASP.NET and C# to get this done.

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  • Big Data – What is Big Data – 3 Vs of Big Data – Volume, Velocity and Variety – Day 2 of 21

    - by Pinal Dave
    Data is forever. Think about it – it is indeed true. Are you using any application as it is which was built 10 years ago? Are you using any piece of hardware which was built 10 years ago? The answer is most certainly No. However, if I ask you – are you using any data which were captured 50 years ago, the answer is most certainly Yes. For example, look at the history of our nation. I am from India and we have documented history which goes back as over 1000s of year. Well, just look at our birthday data – atleast we are using it till today. Data never gets old and it is going to stay there forever.  Application which interprets and analysis data got changed but the data remained in its purest format in most cases. As organizations have grown the data associated with them also grew exponentially and today there are lots of complexity to their data. Most of the big organizations have data in multiple applications and in different formats. The data is also spread out so much that it is hard to categorize with a single algorithm or logic. The mobile revolution which we are experimenting right now has completely changed how we capture the data and build intelligent systems.  Big organizations are indeed facing challenges to keep all the data on a platform which give them a  single consistent view of their data. This unique challenge to make sense of all the data coming in from different sources and deriving the useful actionable information out of is the revolution Big Data world is facing. Defining Big Data The 3Vs that define Big Data are Variety, Velocity and Volume. Volume We currently see the exponential growth in the data storage as the data is now more than text data. We can find data in the format of videos, musics and large images on our social media channels. It is very common to have Terabytes and Petabytes of the storage system for enterprises. As the database grows the applications and architecture built to support the data needs to be reevaluated quite often. Sometimes the same data is re-evaluated with multiple angles and even though the original data is the same the new found intelligence creates explosion of the data. The big volume indeed represents Big Data. Velocity The data growth and social media explosion have changed how we look at the data. There was a time when we used to believe that data of yesterday is recent. The matter of the fact newspapers is still following that logic. However, news channels and radios have changed how fast we receive the news. Today, people reply on social media to update them with the latest happening. On social media sometimes a few seconds old messages (a tweet, status updates etc.) is not something interests users. They often discard old messages and pay attention to recent updates. The data movement is now almost real time and the update window has reduced to fractions of the seconds. This high velocity data represent Big Data. Variety Data can be stored in multiple format. For example database, excel, csv, access or for the matter of the fact, it can be stored in a simple text file. Sometimes the data is not even in the traditional format as we assume, it may be in the form of video, SMS, pdf or something we might have not thought about it. It is the need of the organization to arrange it and make it meaningful. It will be easy to do so if we have data in the same format, however it is not the case most of the time. The real world have data in many different formats and that is the challenge we need to overcome with the Big Data. This variety of the data represent  represent Big Data. Big Data in Simple Words Big Data is not just about lots of data, it is actually a concept providing an opportunity to find new insight into your existing data as well guidelines to capture and analysis your future data. It makes any business more agile and robust so it can adapt and overcome business challenges. Tomorrow In tomorrow’s blog post we will try to answer discuss Evolution of Big Data. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: Big Data, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL

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  • Microsoft TechEd 2010 - Day 2 @ Bangalore

    - by sathya
    Microsoft TechEd 2010 - Day 2 @ Bangalore Today is the day 2 @ Microsoft TechEd 2010. We had lot of technical sessions as usual there were many tracks going on side by side and I was attending the Web simplified track, Which comprised of the following sessions :   Developing a scalable Media Application using ASP.NET MVC - This was a kind of little advanced stuff. Anyways I couldn't understand much because this was not my piece of cake and I havent worked on this before ASP.Net MVC Unplugged - This was really great because this session covered from the basics of MVC showing what is Model,View and Controller and how it worked and the speaker went into the details of the same. Building RESTful Applications with the Open Data Protocol - There were some concepts explained about this from the basics on how to build RESTful Services and it went on till some advanced configurations of the same. Developing Scalable Web Applications with AppFabric Caching - This session showed about the integration of AppFabric with the .Net Web Applications. Instead of using Inproc Sessions, we can use this AppFabric as a substitute for Caching and outofProc Session Storage without writing code and doing a little bit of configurations which brings in High Scalability, performance to our applications. (But unfortunately there were no demos for this session ) Deep Dive : WCF RIA Services - This session was also an interactive one, in this the speaker presented from the basics of WCF and took a Book Store Application as a sample and explained all details concepts on linking with RIA Services   Apart from these sessions, in between there happened some small events in the breaks like Some discussions about Technology, Innovations Music Jokes Mimicry, etc. And on doing all these things, the developers were given some kool gifts / goodies like USBs, T-Shirts, etc. And today I got a chance to do the following certification : (70-562) Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist in .NET 3.5 Web Applications Since I already have an MCTS in .NET 2.0, I wanted to do an MCPD and for doing the same I was required to do an update to my MCTS with the .NET 3.5 framework and I did the same I cleared it and now am an MCTS in .NET 3.5 Web Apps And on doing this I got a T-Shirt and they gave something called Learning $ of worth 30$. And in various stalls for attending each quiz or some game or some referrals we got some Learning $ which we can redeem later based on our Total Learning $. I got 105 $ which i was able to redeem and got a Microsoft Learning BagPack, 1 free Microsoft certification offer, a laptop light and an e-learning content activated. And after all these sessions and small events, we had something called Demo Extravaganza like I mentioned yesterday. This was a great funfilled event with lot of goodies for the attendees. There were some lucky draw which enabled 2 attendees to get Netbooks (Sponsored by Intel) and 1 attendee to get X-box (Sponsored by Citrix). After Choosing the raffle in the lucky draw they kept it on a device called Microsoft Surface which is a kind of big touch screen device and on putting the raffle on that it detected the code of the attendee and said intelligently how many sessions that person has attended and if he has attended more than 5 he got a Netbook and this was coded by a guy called Imran. Apart from they showed demos on : Research by 2 Tamilnadu students from Krishna Arts and Science college, taken 1200 photographs of their college from different angles and put that up in Bing maps using silverlight and linked with Photosynth, which showed a 3d view of their college based on the photos they uploaded Reasearch by Microsoft on Panaramic HD views of the images. One young guy from Microsoft Research showed a demo of this on Srivilliputhur Andal Temple, in Tamil Nadu and its history with a panoramic view of the temple and the near by places with narration of the historical information on the same and with the videos embedded in it with high definition images which we can zoom to a very detailed level. Some Demo on a business app with Silverlight, Business Intelligence (BI) and maps integrated. It showed the sales of a particular product across locations. Some kool demos by 2 geeks who used Robots to show their development talents. 2 Robots fought with each other 2 Robots danced in sync for the A.R. Rehman song Humma Humma... A dream home project by Raman. He is currently using the same in his home too. Robots are controlling his home currently. They showed a video on this. Here are the list of activities that Robot does for him When he reads a book, robot automatically scans that and shows that image of that person in the screen (TV or comp) in front of him. It shows a wikipedia about that person. It says that person is not in linked in. do you want to add him If he sees an IPL Match news in the book and smiles it understands he is interested in that and opens a website related to that and shows the current game and the scorecard. It cooks for him It cleans the room for him whenever he leaves the house when he is doing something if some intruder comes inside his house his computer automatically switches his screen showing the video of the person coming inside. When he wakes up it automatically opens up the system, loads his mails and the news by the side, etc. Some Demos on Microsoft Pivot. This was there in livelabs but it is now available in getpivot.com its a pivoting of the pictorial data based on some categories and filters on the searches that we do. And finally on filling up some feedback forms we got T-Shirts and Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Training Kit CDs. Whats more on TechEd??? Stay tuned!!! Will update you soon on the other happenings!! PS : I typed a lot of content for more than a hour but I pressed a backspace and it went to the previous page and all my content were lost and I was not able to retrieve the same and I typed everything again.

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  • Most efficient way to implement delta time

    - by Starkers
    Here's one way to implement delta time: /// init /// var duration = 5000, currentTime = Date.now(); // and create cube, scene, camera ect ////// function animate() { /// determine delta /// var now = Date.now(), deltat = now - currentTime, currentTime = now, scalar = deltat / duration, angle = (Math.PI * 2) * scalar; ////// /// animate /// cube.rotation.y += angle; ////// /// update /// requestAnimationFrame(render); ////// } Could someone confirm I know how it works? Here what I think is going on: Firstly, we set duration at 5000, which how long the loop will take to complete in an ideal world. With a computer that is slow/busy, let's say the animation loop takes twice as long as it should, so 10000: When this happens, the scalar is set to 2.0: scalar = deltat / duration scalar = 10000 / 5000 scalar = 2.0 We now times all animation by twice as much: angle = (Math.PI * 2) * scalar; angle = (Math.PI * 2) * 2.0; angle = (Math.PI * 4) // which is 2 rotations When we do this, the cube rotation will appear to 'jump', but this is good because the animation remains real-time. With a computer that is going too quickly, let's say the animation loop takes half as long as it should, so 2500: When this happens, the scalar is set to 0.5: scalar = deltat / duration scalar = 2500 / 5000 scalar = 0.5 We now times all animation by a half: angle = (Math.PI * 2) * scalar; angle = (Math.PI * 2) * 0.5; angle = (Math.PI * 1) // which is half a rotation When we do this, the cube won't jump at all, and the animation remains real time, and doesn't speed up. However, would I be right in thinking this doesn't alter how hard the computer is working? I mean it still goes through the loop as fast as it can, and it still has render the whole scene, just with different smaller angles! So this a bad way to implement delta time, right? Now let's pretend the computer is taking exactly as long as it should, so 5000: When this happens, the scalar is set to 1.0: angle = (Math.PI * 2) * scalar; angle = (Math.PI * 2) * 1; angle = (Math.PI * 2) // which is 1 rotation When we do this, everything is timsed by 1, so nothing is changed. We'd get the same result if we weren't using delta time at all! My questions are as follows Mostly importantly, have I got the right end of the stick here? How do we know to set the duration to 5000 ? Or can it be any number? I'm a bit vague about the "computer going too quickly". Is there a way loop less often rather than reduce the animation steps? Seems like a better idea. Using this method, do all of our animations need to be timesed by the scalar? Do we have to hunt down every last one and times it? Is this the best way to implement delta time? I think not, due to the fact the computer can go nuts and all we do is divide each animation step and because we need to hunt down every step and times it by the scalar. Not a very nice DSL, as it were. So what is the best way to implement delta time? Below is one way that I do not really get but may be a better way to implement delta time. Could someone explain please? // Globals INV_MAX_FPS = 1 / 60; frameDelta = 0; clock = new THREE.Clock(); // In the animation loop (the requestAnimationFrame callback)… frameDelta += clock.getDelta(); // API: "Get the seconds passed since the last call to this method." while (frameDelta >= INV_MAX_FPS) { update(INV_MAX_FPS); // calculate physics frameDelta -= INV_MAX_FPS; } How I think this works: Firstly we set INV_MAX_FPS to 0.01666666666 How we will use this number number does not jump out at me. We then intialize a frameDelta which stores how long the last loop took to run. Come the first loop frameDelta is not greater than INV_MAX_FPS so the loop is not run (0 = 0.01666666666). So nothing happens. Now I really don't know what would cause this to happen, but let's pretend that the loop we just went through took 2 seconds to complete: We set frameDelta to 2: frameDelta += clock.getDelta(); frameDelta += 2.00 Now we run an animation thanks to update(0.01666666666). Again what is relevance of 0.01666666666?? And then we take away 0.01666666666 from the frameDelta: frameDelta -= INV_MAX_FPS; frameDelta = frameDelta - INV_MAX_FPS; frameDelta = 2 - 0.01666666666 frameDelta = 1.98333333334 So let's go into the second loop. Let's say it took 2(? Why not 2? Or 12? I am a bit confused): frameDelta += clock.getDelta(); frameDelta = frameDelta + clock.getDelta(); frameDelta = 1.98333333334 + 2 frameDelta = 3.98333333334 This time we enter the while loop because 3.98333333334 = 0.01666666666 We run update We take away 0.01666666666 from frameDelta again: frameDelta -= INV_MAX_FPS; frameDelta = frameDelta - INV_MAX_FPS; frameDelta = 3.98333333334 - 0.01666666666 frameDelta = 3.96666666668 Now let's pretend the loop is super quick and runs in just 0.1 seconds and continues to do this. (Because the computer isn't busy any more). Basically, the update function will be run, and every loop we take away 0.01666666666 from the frameDelta untill the frameDelta is less than 0.01666666666. And then nothing happens until the computer runs slowly again? Could someone shed some light please? Does the update() update the scalar or something like that and we still have to times everything by the scalar like in the first example?

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  • Tiling rectangles seamlessly in WPF

    - by Joe White
    I want to seamlessly tile a bunch of different-colored Rectangles in WPF. That is, I want to put a bunch of rectangles edge-to-edge, and not have gaps between them. If everything is aligned to pixels, this works fine. But I also want to support arbitrary zoom, and ideally, I don't want to use SnapsToDevicePixels (because it would compromise quality when the image is zoomed way out). But that means my Rectangles sometimes render with gaps. For example: <Page xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation" xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml" Background="Black"> <Canvas SnapsToDevicePixels="False"> <Canvas.RenderTransform> <ScaleTransform ScaleX="0.5" ScaleY="0.5"/> </Canvas.RenderTransform> <Rectangle Canvas.Left="25" Width="100" Height="100" Fill="#CFC"/> <Rectangle Canvas.Left="125" Width="100" Height="100" Fill="#CCF"/> </Canvas> </Page> If the ScaleTransform's ScaleX is 1, then the Rectangles fit together seamlessly. When it's 0.5, there's a dark gray streak between them. I understand why -- the combined semi-transparent edge pixels don't combine to be 100% opaque. But I would like a way to fix it. I could always just make the Rectangles overlap, but I won't always know in advance what patterns they'll be in (this is for a game that will eventually support a map editor). Besides, this would cause artifacts around the overlap area when things were zoomed way in (unless I did bevel-cut angles on the underlapping portion, which is an awful lot of work, and still causes problems at corners). Is there some way I can combine these Rectangles into a single combined "shape" that does render without internal gaps? I've played around with GeometryDrawing, which does exactly that, but then I don't see a way to paint each RectangleGeometry with a different-colored brush. Are there any other ways to get shapes to tile seamlessly under an arbitrary transform, without resorting to SnapsToDevicePixels?

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  • Is the design notion of layers contrived?

    - by Bruce
    Hi all I'm reading through Eric Evans' awesome work, Domain-Driven Design. However, I can't help feeling that the 'layers' model is contrived. To expand on that statement, it seems as if it tries to shoe-horn various concepts into a specific, neat model, that of layers talking to each other. It seems to me that the layers model is too simplified to actually capture the way that (good) software works. To expand further: Evans says: "Partition a complex program into layers. Develop a design within each layer that is cohesive and that depends only on the layers below. Follow standard architectural patterns to provide loose coupling to the layers above." Maybe I'm misunderstanding what 'depends' means, but as far as I can see, it can either mean a) Class X (in the UI for example) has a reference to a concrete class Y (in the main application) or b) Class X has a reference to a class Y-ish object providing class Y-ish services (ie a reference held as an interface). If it means (a), then this is clearly a bad thing, since it defeats re-using the UI as a front-end to some other application that provides Y-ish functionality. But if it means (b), then how is the UI any more dependent on the application, than the application is dependent on the UI? Both are decoupled from each other as much as they can be while still talking to each other. Evans' layer model of dependencies going one way seems too neat. First, isn't it more accurate to say that each area of the design provides a module that is pretty much an island to itself, and that ideally all communication is through interfaces, in a contract-driven/responsibility-driven paradigm? (ie, the 'dependency only on lower layers' is contrived). Likewise with the domain layer talking to the database - the domain layer is as decoupled (through DAO etc) from the database as the database is from the domain layer. Neither is dependent on the other, both can be swapped out. Second, the idea of a conceptual straight line (as in from one layer to the next) is artificial - isn't there more a network of intercommunicating but separate modules, including external services, utility services and so on, branching off at different angles? Thanks all - hoping that your responses can clarify my understanding on this..

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  • Turtle Graphics as a Haskell Monad

    - by iliis
    I'm trying to implement turtle graphis in Haskell. The goal is to be able to write a function like this: draw_something = do fordward 100 right 90 forward 100 ... and then have it produce a list of points (maybe with additional properties): > draw_something (0,0) 0 -- start at (0,0) facing east (0 degrees) [(0,0), (0,100), (-100,100), ...] I have all this working in a 'normal' way, but I fail to implement it as a Haskell Monad and use the do-notation. The basic code: data State a = State (a, a) a -- (x,y), angle deriving (Show, Eq) initstate :: State Float initstate = State (0.0,0.0) 0.0 -- constrain angles to 0 to 2*pi fmod :: Float -> Float fmod a | a >= 2*pi = fmod (a-2*pi) | a < 0 = fmod (a+2*pi) | otherwise = a forward :: Float -> State Float -> [State Float] forward d (State (x,y) angle) = [State (x + d * (sin angle), y + d * (cos angle)) angle] right :: Float -> State Float -> [State Float] right d (State pos angle) = [State pos (fmod (angle+d))] bind :: [State a] -> (State a -> [State a]) -> [State a] bind xs f = xs ++ (f (head $ reverse xs)) ret :: State a -> [State a] ret x = [x] With this I can now write > [initstate] `bind` (forward 100) `bind` (right (pi/2)) `bind` (forward 100) [State (0.0,0.0) 0.0,State (0.0,100.0) 0.0,State (0.0,100.0) 1.5707964,State (100.0,99.99999) 1.5707964] And get the expected result. However I fail to implement this as an instance of Monad. instance Monad [State] where ... results in `State' is not applied to enough type arguments Expected kind `*', but `State' has kind `* -> *' In the instance declaration for `Monad [State]' And if I wrap the list in a new object data StateList a = StateList [State a] instance Monad StateList where return x = StateList [x] I get Couldn't match type `a' with `State a' `a' is a rigid type variable bound by the type signature for return :: a -> StateList a at logo.hs:38:9 In the expression: x In the first argument of `StateList', namely `[x]' In the expression: StateList [x] I tried various other versions but I never got it to run as I'd like to. What am I doing wrong? What do I understand incorrectly?

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  • Why differs floating-point precision in C# when separated by parantheses and when separated by state

    - by Andreas Larsen
    I am aware of how floating point precision works in the regular cases, but I stumbled on an odd situation in my C# code. Why aren't result1 and result2 the exact same floating point value here? const float A; // Arbitrary value const float B; // Arbitrary value float result1 = (A*B)*dt; float result2 = (A*B); result2 *= dt; From this page I figured float arithmetic was left-associative and that this means values are evaluated and calculated in a left-to-right manner. The full source code involves XNA's Quaternions. I don't think it's relevant what my constants are and what the VectorHelper.AddPitchRollYaw() does. The test passes just fine if I calculate the delta pitch/roll/yaw angles in the same manner, but as the code is below it does not pass: X Expected: 0.275153548f But was: 0.275153786f [TestFixture] internal class QuaternionPrecisionTest { [Test] public void Test() { JoystickInput input; input.Pitch = 0.312312432f; input.Roll = 0.512312432f; input.Yaw = 0.912312432f; const float dt = 0.017001f; float pitchRate = input.Pitch * PhysicsConstants.MaxPitchRate; float rollRate = input.Roll * PhysicsConstants.MaxRollRate; float yawRate = input.Yaw * PhysicsConstants.MaxYawRate; Quaternion orient1 = Quaternion.Identity; Quaternion orient2 = Quaternion.Identity; for (int i = 0; i < 10000; i++) { float deltaPitch = (input.Pitch * PhysicsConstants.MaxPitchRate) * dt; float deltaRoll = (input.Roll * PhysicsConstants.MaxRollRate) * dt; float deltaYaw = (input.Yaw * PhysicsConstants.MaxYawRate) * dt; // Add deltas of pitch, roll and yaw to the rotation matrix orient1 = VectorHelper.AddPitchRollYaw( orient1, deltaPitch, deltaRoll, deltaYaw); deltaPitch = pitchRate * dt; deltaRoll = rollRate * dt; deltaYaw = yawRate * dt; orient2 = VectorHelper.AddPitchRollYaw( orient2, deltaPitch, deltaRoll, deltaYaw); } Assert.AreEqual(orient1.X, orient2.X, "X"); Assert.AreEqual(orient1.Y, orient2.Y, "Y"); Assert.AreEqual(orient1.Z, orient2.Z, "Z"); Assert.AreEqual(orient1.W, orient2.W, "W"); } } Granted, the error is small and only presents itself after a large number of iterations, but it has caused me some great headackes.

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  • MVVM Binding Orthogonal Aspects in Views e.g. Application Settings

    - by chibacity
    I have an application which I am developing using WPF\Prism\MVVM. All is going well and I have some pleasing MVVM implementations. However, in some of my views I would like to be able to bind application settings e.g. when a user reloads an application, the checkbox for auto-scrolling a grid should be checked in the state it was last time the user used the application. My view needs to bind to something that holds the "auto-scroll" setting state. I could put this on the view-model, but applications settings are orthogonal to the purpose of the view-model. The "auto-scroll" setting is controlling an aspect of the view. This setting is just an example. There will be quite a number of them and splattering my view-models with properties to represent application settings (so I can bind them) feels decidedly yucky. One view-model per view seems to be de rigeuer... What is best\usual practice here? Splatter my view-models with application settings? Have multiple view-models per view so settings can be represented in their own right? Split views so that controls can bind to an ApplicationSettingsViewModel? = too many views? Something else? Edit 1 To add a little more context, I am developing a UI with a tabbed interface. Each tab will host a single widget and there a variety of widgets. Each widget is a Prism composition of individual views. Some views are common amongst widgets e.g. a file picker view. Whilst each widget is composed of several views, as a whole, conceptually a widget has a single set of user settings e.g. last file selected, auto-scroll enabled, etc. These need to be persisted and retrieved\applied when the application starts again, and the widget views are created. My question is focused on the fact that conceptually a widget has a single set of user settings which is at right-angles to the fact that a widget consists of many views. Each view in the widget has it's own view-model (which works nicely and logically) but if I stick to a one view-model per view, I would have to splatter each view-model with user settings appropriate to it. This doesn't sound right ?!?

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  • embedded Italic, bold fonts don't look the same in flex as in Windows...

    - by Mark
    ...unless they're something like "Times New Roman" or some other established font with a fully designed italic and bold, presumably in seperate files. Let me explain what I mean (though why no one has commented on this before I have no idea.) Numerous, numerous fonts do not have a seperate file for italic and bold, and in fact to the best of my knowledge don't even have italic and bold defined as such. But if you install them on windows (for example) and then use them in an app, You can still make use of italic and bold with those fonts. For italic, and oblique angle is just given to it, presumably by Windows, and it looks the same in all Windows apps, and the bold is just given a heavier weight. OK, well here's the problem: if you embed a font like that in a Flex app, as a "SystemFont" the italic and bold will not look the same as they do in Windows. Specifically, the oblique angle is invariably much less than in Windows (i.e the italic slant is much less) and the bold version is not bold enough. I vaguely recall thinking that there was some flex mechanism to assign custom oblique angles for italic (and weight for bold) but now can't recall what it is. Does anyone know the correct established way to do this. The following is actually a seperate (but related) font question (in case anyone is expert in all this.) Its rather a lengthy question and can be skipped, but its something that's plagued me for a long time. I mention above embedding as a "SystemFont", so iow something like this: package fonts { import flash.display.Sprite; public class FLW_Script_I extends Sprite { [Embed(systemFont='FLW Script', fontName='FLW Script', fontStyle='italic', fntWeight='normal', mimeType='application/x-font-truetype')] public var wrFont:Class; } } The other alternative to SystemFont for embedding, is "Source" followed by the name of an actual font file. If you try to embed one of the aformentioned single file fonts as a Source file (as opposed to SystemFont) and specify fontStyle='italic', then the mxmlc compiler will return an error and say there is no italic info in the font file. So up to now I have only been embedding these fonts as "SystemFont". The problem is, flex uses two different font compilers internally for Source embedding and SystemFont embedding. For source font embeds it uses the "Batik" compiler and for SystemFont, the JRE (Java Runtime) font compiler. Well actually the Batik is considered a superior compiler and generally produces better looking fonts. And also if you mix normal fonts compiled with Batik and italic compiled with JRE, sometimes the line spacing is different for the two, and it doesn't look right. So does anyone have an idea how to get mxmlc to do italic and bold for these single file fonts when embedding as "Source". Would there be a way using C++ or whatever to construct an "italic" font file from the SystemFont for such a font in windows.

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  • MATLAB plot moving data points in seperate subplots simutaneously

    - by Nate B.
    I wish to visualize the movement of a data point throughout space across a period of time within MATLAB. However, the way I want my figure to display is such that only a single instant is plotted at any given time. That was easy, I simply created a for loop to update my 3D plot display for every set of coordinates (x,y,z) in my data. However, I wish to display 4 different viewing angles of this plot at all times. I am well aware of how to setup subplots within MATLAB, that is not the issue. My issue is getting all 4 of these subplots to execute simultaneously so that all 4 subplots are always displaying the same point in time. I would appreciate if anyone could suggest how to handle this issue. As requested, my code for a figure with a single plot is shown below: datan = DATA; %data in form of x,y,z,a,b,c by column for row# of time points tib=zeros(size(datan,1),12); tib(:,1:3) = datan(:,1:3); tib_ref=tib(1,1:3); for i=1:size(datan,1) tib(i,1:3)=tib(i,1:3)-tib_ref; end angle_to_dircos close all figure('Name','Directions (Individual Cycles)','NumberTitle','off') for cc=1:2 hold off for bb=1:10:size(tib,1); scatter3(tib(bb,1),tib(bb,2),tib(bb,3),'green','filled'); %z and y axes are flipped in polhemus system hold on p0 = [tib(bb,1),tib(bb,2),tib(bb,3)]; p1 = [tib(bb,1)+10*tib(bb,4),tib(bb,2)+10*tib(bb,5),tib(bb,3)+10*tib(bb,6)]; p2 = [tib(bb,1)+10*tib(bb,7),tib(bb,2)+10*tib(bb,8),tib(bb,3)+10*tib(bb,9)]; p3 = [-(tib(bb,1)+100*tib(bb,10)),-(tib(bb,2)+100*tib(bb,11)),-(tib(bb,3)+100*tib(bb,12))]; vectarrow(p0,p1,1,0,0) hold on vectarrow(p0,p2,0,1,0) hold on vectarrow(p0,p3,0,0,1) hold on az = 90; el = 0; view(az, el); xlim([-50,50]); ylim([-50,50]); zlim([-50,50]); xlabel('distance from center in X'); ylabel('distance from center in Y'); zlabel('distance from center in Z'); title('XYZ Scatter Plots of Tracker Position'); hold on plot3(0,0,0,'sk','markerfacecolor',[0,0,0]); p0 = [0,0,0]; p1 = [10,0,0]; p2 = [0,10,0]; p3 = [0,0,100]; vectarrow(p0,p1,1,0,0) hold on vectarrow(p0,p2,0,1,0) hold on vectarrow(p0,p3,1,0,1) drawnow; end end

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  • Is there a way to split a widescreen monitor in to two or more virtual monitors?

    - by Mike Thompson
    Like most developers I have grown to love dual monitors. I won't go into all the reasons for their goodness; just take it as a given. However, they are not perfect. You can never seem to line them up "just right". You always end up with the monitors at slight funny angles. And of course the bezel always gets in the way. And this is with identical monitors. The problem is much worse with different monitors -- VMWare's multi monitor feature won't even work with monitors of differnt resolutions. When you use multiple monnitors, one of them becomes your primary monitor of focus. Your focus may flip from one monitor to the other, but at any point in time you are usually focusing on only one monitor. There are exceptions to this (WinDiff, Excel), but this is generally the case. I suggest that having a single large monitor with all the benefits of multiple smaller monitors would be a better solution. Wide screen monitors are fantastic, but it is hard to use all the space efficiently. If you are writing code you are generally working on the left-hand side of the window. If you maximize an editor on a wide-screen monitor the right-hand side of the window will be a sea of white. Programs like WinSplit Revolution will help to organise your windows, but this is really just addressing the symptom, not the problem. Even with WinSplit Revolution, when you maximise a window it will take up the whole screen. You can't lock a window into a specific section of the screen. This is where virtual monitors comes in. What would be really nice is a video driver that sits on top of the existing driver, but allows a single monitor to be virtualised into multiple monitors. Control Panel would see your single physical monitor as two or more virtual monitors. The software could even support a virtual bezel to emphasise what is happening, or you could opt for seamless mode. Programs like WinSplit Revolution and UltraMon would still work. This virtual video driver would allow you to slice & dice your physical monitor into as many virtual monitors as you want. Does anybody know if such software exists? If not, are there any budding Windows display driver guru's out there willing to take up the challenge? I am not after the myriad of virtual desktop/window manager programs that are available. I get frustrated with these programs. They seem good at first but they usually have some strange behaviour and don't work well with other programs (such as WinSplit Revolution). I want the real thing!

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  • How to use a LinkButton inside gridview to delete selected username in the code-behind file?

    - by jenifer
    I have a "UserDetail" table in my "JobPost.mdf". I have a "Gridview1" showing the column from "UserDetail" table,which has a primary key "UserName". This "UserName" is originally saved using Membership class function. Now I add a "Delete" linkbutton to the GridView1. This "Delete" is not autogenerate button,I dragged inside the column itemtemplate from ToolBox. The GridView1's columns now become "Delete_LinkButton"+"UserName"(within the UserDetail table)+"City"(within the UserDetail table)+"IsAdmin"(within the UserDetail table) What I need is that by clicking this "delete_linkButton",it will ONLY delete the entire User Entity on the same row (link by the corresponding "UserName") from the "UserDetail" table,as well as delete all information from the AspNetDB.mdf (User,Membership,UserInRole,etc). I would like to fireup a user confirm,but not mandatory. At least I am trying to make it functional in the correct way. for example: Command UserName City IsAdmin delete ken Los Angles TRUE delete jim Toronto FALSE When I click "delete" on the first row, I need all the record about "ken" inside the "UserDetail" table to be removed. Meanwhile, all the record about "ken" in the AspNetDB.mdf will be gone, including UserinRole table. I am new to asp.net, so I don't know how to pass the commandargument of the "Delete_LinkButton" to the code-behind file LinkButton1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e), because I need one extra parameter "UserName". My partial code is listed below: <asp:TemplateField> <ItemTemplate> <asp:LinkButton ID="Delete_LinkButton" runat="server" onclick="LinkButton1_Click1" CommandArgument='<%# Eval("UserName","{0}") %>'>LinkButton</asp:LinkButton> </ItemTemplate> </asp:TemplateField> protected void Delete_LinkButton_Click(object sender, EventArgs e) { ((LinkButton) GridView1.FindControl("Delete_LinkButton")).Attributes.Add("onclick", "'return confirm('Are you sure you want to delete {0} '" + UserName); Membership.DeleteUser(UserName); JobPostDataContext db = new JobPostDataContext(); var query = from u in db.UserDetails where u.UserName == UserName select u; for (var Item in query) { db.UserDetails.DeleteOnSubmit(Item); } db.SubmitChanges(); } Please do help! Thanks in advance.

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  • SQL SERVER – Developer Training Resources and Summary Roundup

    - by pinaldave
    It is always pleasure for any author when other renowned authors in the industry write about you. Earlier I wrote a five part blog series on Developer Training and I have received a phenomenal response to the series. I have received plenty of comments, questions and feedback. I thought it would be nice to sum up the whole series as well answer a few of the questions received. Quick Recap Developer Training - Importance and Significance - Part 1 In this part we discussed the importance of training in the real world. The most important and valuable resource any company is its employee. Employees who have been well-trained will be better at their jobs and produce a better product.  An employee who is well trained obviously knows more about their job and all the technical aspects. I have a very high opinion about training employees and it is the most important task. Developer Training – Employee Morals and Ethics – Part 2 In this part we discussed the most crucial components of training. Often employees are expecting the company to pay for their training and the company expresses no interest in training the employee. Quite often training expenses are the real issue for both the employee and employer. There are companies that pay for 100% of the expenses and there are employees who opt for training on their own expense during their personal time. Training is often looked at as vacation by employee and employers and we need to change this mind-set. One of the ways is to report back the learning to your manager and implement newly learned knowledge in day-to-day work. Developer Training – Difficult Questions and Alternative Perspective - Part 3 This part was the most difficult to write as I tried to address a few difficult questions and answers. Training is such a sensitive issue that many developers when not receiving chance for training think about leaving the organization. The manager often feels pressure to accommodate every single employee for training even though his training budget is limited. It is indeed the responsibility of the developer to get maximum advantage from the training. Training immediately helps organizations but stays as a part of an employee’s knowledge forever. Developer Training – Various Options for Developer Training – Part 4 In this part I tried to explore a few methods and options for training. The generic feedback I received on this blog post was short and I should have explored each of the subject of the training in details. I believe there are two big buckets of training 1) Instructor Lead Training and 2) Self Lead Training. The common element between both the methods is “learning material”. Learning material can be of any format – videos, books, paper notes or just a plain black board. Instructor-led training is a very effective mode but not possible every single time. During the course of the developer’s career, one has to learn lots of new technology and it is almost impossible to have a quality trainer available on that subject at that time. Books are most effective and proven methods, however, it always helps if someone explains the concepts of the book with a demonstration. In recent times I have started to believe in online trainings which leads to a hybrid experience. Online trainings take the best part of the books and the best part of the instructor-led training and gives effective training in a matter of hours. Developer Training – A Conclusive Summary- Part 5 In this part, I shared what I was continuously thinking about developer training. There is no better teacher than oneself. There is no better motivation than a personal desire to learn new technology. Honestly there is nothing more personal learning. That “change is the only constant” and “adapt & overcome” are the essential lessons of life. One cannot stop the learning and resist the change. In the IT industry “ego of knowing all” and the “resistance to change” are the most challenging issues. Once someone overcomes them, life is much easier. I believe that proper and appropriate high quality training can help to address the burning issues. Opinion of Friends I invited a few of my friends to express their opinion about developer training and here are their opinions. I am listing them here in the order of the blog post publishing date. Nakul Vachhrajani - Developer Trainings-Importance, Benefits, Tips and follow-up Nakul’s sums of many of the concepts which are complementary to my blog posts. Nakul addresses the burning question of developer training with different angles. I am personally very impressed by his following statement - “Being skilled does not mean having just a stack of certifications, but it also means having an understanding about the internals of the products that you are working on – and using that knowledge to improve the efficiency & productivity at the workplace in turn resulting in better products, better consulting abilities and a happier self.” Nakul also suggests the online training options of Pluralsight. Vinod Kumar - Training–a necessity or bonus Vinod Kumar comes up with excellent follow up on developer training. Vinod is known for his inspirational writing about SQL Server. Vinod starts with a story of a student who is extremely eager to learn the wisdom of life from a monk but the monk does not accept him as a disciple for a long time. The conversation between student and monk is indeed an essence of all learning. We all want to learn quickly and be successful but the most important thing in life is to have the right attitude towards learning and more so towards life. The blog post end with a very important thought about how to avoid the famous excuse – “I don’t have enough time.” Ritesh Shah - Training – useful or useless? Ritesh brings up very important concept related to training. Ritesh in his meticulous style explains why training is an important and lifelong process. Training must not stop at any age but should continue forever. The moment training stops, progress stops along with. Paras Doshi - Professional Development Resource Paras is known for his to–the-point writing, and has summarized the five part series very precisely. He read the five part series and created a digest summary of the blog post. If you are in a rush and have no time to read my five series – I suggest you read his blog post. Training Resources I am often asked what the best resources for learning new technology are. This is the most difficult question EVER. There are plenty of good training resources available. When it is about training our needs are different, our preference of learning is different and we all have an opinion. Additionally, we all are located in different geographic locations worldwide and there is no way one solution will fit all. However, let me list a few of the training resources which I have built so far and you can consume them if you find it relevant to your need. SQL Server Books SQL Server Interview Questions and Answers SQL Wait Stats SQL Programming Joes 2 Pros SQL Server Video Tutorials SQL Server Questions and Answers SQL Server Performance: Indexing Basics SQL Server Performance: Introduction to Query Tuning SQL in Sixty Seconds Series of Sixty Seconds Learning Video on YouTube Trust me worldwide web is very big and there are plenty of high quality learning materials available worldwide – trainer-led as well online. I suggest you explore various options and make the best choice for yourself. Remember, training is your personal journey and it should never stop. Are you ready? Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: Developer Training, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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  • Pet Peeves with the Windows Phone 7 Marketplace

    - by Bil Simser
    Have you ever noticed how something things just gnaw at your very being. This is the case with the WP7 marketplace, the Zune software, and the things that drive me batshit crazy with a side of fries. To go. I wanted to share. XBox Live is Not the Centre of the Universe Okay, it’s fine that the Zune software has an XBox live tag for games so can see them clearly but do we really need to have it shoved down our throats. On every click? Click on Games in the marketplace: The first thing that it defaults to on the filters on the right is XBox Live: Okay. Fine. However if you change it (say to Paid) then click onto a title when you come back from that title is the filter still set to Paid? No. It’s back to XBox Live again. Really? Give us a break. If you change to any filter on any other genre then click on the selected title, it doesn’t revert back to anything. It stays on the selection you picked. Let’s be fair here. The Games genre should behave just like every other one. If I pick Paid then when I come back to the list please remember that. Double Dipping On the subject of XBox Live titles, Microsoft (and developers who have an agreement with Microsoft to produce Live titles, which generally rules out indie game developers) is double dipping with regards to exposure of their titles. Here’s the Puzzle and Trivia Game section on the Marketplace for XBox Live titles: And here’s the same category filtered on Paid titles: See the problem? Two indie titles while the rest are XBox Live ones. So while XBL has it’s filter, they also get to showcase their wares in the Paid and Free filters as well. If you’re going to have an XBox Live filter then use it and stop pushing down indie titles until they’re off the screen (on some genres this is already the case). Free and Paid titles should be just that and not include XBox Live ones. If you’re really stoked that people can’t find the Free XBox Live titles vs. the paid ones, then create a Free XBox Live filter and a Paid XBox Live filter. I don’t think we would mind much. Whose Trial is it Anyways? You might notice apps in the marketplace with titles like “My Fart App Professional Lite” or “Silicon Lamb Spleen Builder Free”. When you submit and app to the marketplace it can either be free or paid. If it’s a paid app you also have the option to submit it with Trial capabilities. It’s up to you to decide what you offer in the trial version but trial versions can be purchased from within the app so after someone trys out your app (for free) and wants to unlock the Super Secret Obama Spy Ring Level, they can just go to the marketplace from your app (if you built that functionality in) and upgrade to the paid version. However it creates a rift of sorts when it comes to visibility. Some developers go the route of the paid app with a trial version, others decide to submit *two* apps instead of one. One app is the “Free” or “Lite” verions and the other is the paid version. Why go to the hassle of submitting two apps when you can just create a trial version in the same app? Again, visibility. There’s no way to tell Paid apps with Trial versions and ones without (it’s an option, you don’t have to provide trial versions, although I think it’s a good idea). However there is a way to see the Free apps from the Paid ones so some submit the two apps and have the Free version have links to buy the paid one (again through the Marketplace tasks in the API). What we as developers need for visibility is a new filter. Trial. That’s it. It would simply filter on Paid apps that have trial capabilities and surface up those apps just like the free ones. If Microsoft added this filter to the marketplace, it would eliminate the need for people to submit their “Free” and “Lite” versions and make it easier for the developer not to have to maintain two systems. I mean, is it really that hard? Can’t be any more difficult than the XBox Live Filter that’s already there. Location is Everything The last thing on my bucket list is about location. When I launch Zune I’m running in my native location setting, Canada. What’s great is that I navigate to the Travel Tools section where I have one of my apps and behold the splendour that I see: There are my apps in the number 1 and number 4 slot for top selling in that category. I show it to my wife to make up for the sleepless nights writing this stuff and we dance around and celebrate. Then I change my location on my operation system to United States and re-launch Zune. WTF? My flight app has slipped to the 10th spot (I’m only showing 4 across here out of the 7 in Zune) and my border check app that was #1 is now in the 32nd spot! End of celebration. Not only is relevance being looked at here, I value the comments people make on may apps as do most developers. I want to respond to them and show them that I’m listening. The next version of my border app will provide multiple camera angles. However when I’m running in my native Canada location, I only see two reviews. Changing over to United States I see fourteen! While there are tools out there to provide with you a unified view, I shouldn’t have to rely on them. My own Zune desktop software should allow me to see everything. I realize that some developers will submit an app and only target it for some locations and that’s their choice. However I shouldn’t have to jump through hoops to see what apps are ahead of mine, or see people comments and ratings. Another proposal. Either unify the marketplace (i.e. when I’m looking at it show me everything combined) or let me choose a filter. I think the first option might be difficult as you’re trying to average out top selling apps across all markets and have to deal with some apps that have been omitted from some markets. Although I think you could come up with a set of use cases that would handle that, maybe that’s too much work. At the very least, let us developers view the markets in a drop down or something from within the Zune desktop. Having to shut down Zune, change our location, and re-launch Zune to see other perspectives is just too onerous. A Call to Action These are just one mans opinion. Do you agree? Disagree? Feel hungry for a bacon sandwich? Let everyone know via the comments below. Perhaps someone from Microsoft will be reading and take some of these ideas under advisement. Maybe not, but at least let’s get the word out that we really want to see some change. Egypt can do it, why not WP7 developers!

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  • Routes on a sphere surface - Find geodesic?

    - by CaNNaDaRk
    I'm working with some friends on a browser based game where people can move on a 2D map. It's been almost 7 years and still people play this game so we are thinking of a way to give them something new. Since then the game map was a limited plane and people could move from (0, 0) to (MAX_X, MAX_Y) in quantized X and Y increments (just imagine it as a big chessboard). We believe it's time to give it another dimension so, just a couple of weeks ago, we began to wonder how the game could look with other mappings: Unlimited plane with continous movement: this could be a step forward but still i'm not convinced. Toroidal World (continous or quantized movement): sincerely I worked with torus before but this time I want something more... Spherical world with continous movement: this would be great! What we want Users browsers are given a list of coordinates like (latitude, longitude) for each object on the spherical surface map; browsers must then show this in user's screen rendering them inside a web element (canvas maybe? this is not a problem). When people click on the plane we convert the (mouseX, mouseY) to (lat, lng) and send it to the server which has to compute a route between current user's position to the clicked point. What we have We began writing a Java library with many useful maths to work with Rotation Matrices, Quaternions, Euler Angles, Translations, etc. We put it all together and created a program that generates sphere points, renders them and show them to the user inside a JPanel. We managed to catch clicks and translate them to spherical coords and to provide some other useful features like view rotation, scale, translation etc. What we have now is like a little (very little indeed) engine that simulates client and server interaction. Client side shows points on the screen and catches other interactions, server side renders the view and does other calculus like interpolating the route between current position and clicked point. Where is the problem? Obviously we want to have the shortest path to interpolate between the two route points. We use quaternions to interpolate between two points on the surface of the sphere and this seemed to work fine until i noticed that we weren't getting the shortest path on the sphere surface: We though the problem was that the route is calculated as the sum of two rotations about X and Y axis. So we changed the way we calculate the destination quaternion: We get the third angle (the first is latitude, the second is longitude, the third is the rotation about the vector which points toward our current position) which we called orientation. Now that we have the "orientation" angle we rotate Z axis and then use the result vector as the rotation axis for the destination quaternion (you can see the rotation axis in grey): What we got is the correct route (you can see it lays on a great circle), but we get to this ONLY if the starting route point is at latitude, longitude (0, 0) which means the starting vector is (sphereRadius, 0, 0). With the previous version (image 1) we don't get a good result even when startin point is 0, 0, so i think we're moving towards a solution, but the procedure we follow to get this route is a little "strange" maybe? In the following image you get a view of the problem we get when starting point is not (0, 0), as you can see starting point is not the (sphereRadius, 0, 0) vector, and as you can see the destination point (which is correctly drawn!) is not on the route. The magenta point (the one which lays on the route) is the route's ending point rotated about the center of the sphere of (-startLatitude, 0, -startLongitude). This means that if i calculate a rotation matrix and apply it to every point on the route maybe i'll get the real route, but I start to think that there's a better way to do this. Maybe I should try to get the plane through the center of the sphere and the route points, intersect it with the sphere and get the geodesic? But how? Sorry for being way too verbose and maybe for incorrect English but this thing is blowing my mind! EDIT: This code version is related to the first image: public void setRouteStart(double lat, double lng) { EulerAngles tmp = new EulerAngles ( Math.toRadians(lat), 0, -Math.toRadians(lng)); //set route start Quaternion qtStart.setInertialToObject(tmp); //do other stuff like drawing start point... } public void impostaDestinazione(double lat, double lng) { EulerAngles tmp = new AngoliEulero( Math.toRadians(lat), 0, -Math.toRadians(lng)); qtEnd.setInertialToObject(tmp); //do other stuff like drawing dest point... } public V3D interpolate(double totalTime, double t) { double _t = t/totalTime; Quaternion q = Quaternion.Slerp(qtStart, qtEnd, _t); RotationMatrix.inertialQuatToIObject(q); V3D p = matInt.inertialToObject(V3D.Xaxis.scale(sphereRadius)); //other stuff, like drawing point ... return p; } //mostly taken from a book! public static Quaternion Slerp(Quaternion q0, Quaternion q1, double t) { double cosO = q0.dot(q1); double q1w = q1.w; double q1x = q1.x; double q1y = q1.y; double q1z = q1.z; if (cosO < 0.0f) { q1w = -q1w; q1x = -q1x; q1y = -q1y; q1z = -q1z; cosO = -cosO; } double sinO = Math.sqrt(1.0f - cosO*cosO); double O = Math.atan2(sinO, cosO); double oneOverSinO = 1.0f / senoOmega; k0 = Math.sin((1.0f - t) * O) * oneOverSinO; k1 = Math.sin(t * O) * oneOverSinO; // Interpolate return new Quaternion( k0*q0.w + k1*q1w, k0*q0.x + k1*q1x, k0*q0.y + k1*q1y, k0*q0.z + k1*q1z ); } A little dump of what i get (again check image 1): Route info: Sphere radius and center: 200,000, (0.0, 0.0, 0.0) Route start: lat 0,000 °, lng 0,000 ° @v: (200,000, 0,000, 0,000), |v| = 200,000 Route end: lat 30,000 °, lng 30,000 ° @v: (150,000, 86,603, 100,000), |v| = 200,000 Qt dump: (w, x, y, z), rot. angle°, (x, y, z) rot. axis Qt start: (1,000, 0,000, -0,000, 0,000); 0,000 °; (1,000, 0,000, 0,000) Qt end: (0,933, 0,067, -0,250, 0,250); 42,181 °; (0,186, -0,695, 0,695) Route start: lat 30,000 °, lng 10,000 ° @v: (170,574, 30,077, 100,000), |v| = 200,000 Route end: lat 80,000 °, lng -50,000 ° @v: (22,324, -26,604, 196,962), |v| = 200,000 Qt dump: (w, x, y, z), rot. angle°, (x, y, z) rot. axis Qt start: (0,962, 0,023, -0,258, 0,084); 31,586 °; (0,083, -0,947, 0,309) Qt end: (0,694, -0,272, -0,583, -0,324); 92,062 °; (-0,377, -0,809, -0,450)

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  • (Unity)Getting a mirrored mesh from my data structure

    - by Steve
    Here's the background: I'm in the beginning stages of an RTS game in Unity. I have a procedurally generated terrain with a perlin-noise height map, as well as a function to generate a river. The problem is that the graphical creation of the map is taking the data structure of the map and rotating it by 180 degrees. I noticed this problem when i was creating my rivers. I would set the River's height to flat, and noticed that the actual tiles that were flat in the graphical representation were flipped and mirrored. Here's 3 screenshots of the map from different angles: http://imgur.com/a/VLHHq As you can see, if you flipped (graphically) the river by 180 degrees on the z axis, it would fit where the terrain is flattened. I have a suspicion it is being caused by a misunderstanding on my part of how vertices work. Alas, here is a snippet of the code that is used: This code here creates a new array of Tile objects, which hold the information for each tile, including its type, coordinate, height, and it's 4 vertices public DTileMap (int size_x, int size_y) { this.size_x = size_x; this.size_y = size_y; //Initialize Map_Data Array of Tile Objects map_data = new Tile[size_x, size_y]; for (int j = 0; j < size_y; j++) { for (int i = 0; i < size_x; i++) { map_data [i, j] = new Tile (); map_data[i,j].coordinate.x = (int)i; map_data[i,j].coordinate.y = (int)j; map_data[i,j].vertices[0] = new Vector3 (i * GTileMap.TileMap.tileSize, map_data[i,j].Height, -j * GTileMap.TileMap.tileSize); map_data[i,j].vertices[1] = new Vector3 ((i+1) * GTileMap.TileMap.tileSize, map_data[i,j].Height, -(j) * GTileMap.TileMap.tileSize); map_data[i,j].vertices[2] = new Vector3 (i * GTileMap.TileMap.tileSize, map_data[i,j].Height, -(j-1) * GTileMap.TileMap.tileSize); map_data[i,j].vertices[3] = new Vector3 ((i+1) * GTileMap.TileMap.tileSize, map_data[i,j].Height, -(j-1) * GTileMap.TileMap.tileSize); } } This code sets the river tiles to height 0 foreach (Tile t in map_data) { if (t.realType == "Water") { t.vertices[0].y = 0f; t.vertices[1].y = 0f; t.vertices[2].y = 0f; t.vertices[3].y = 0f; } } And below is the code to generate the actual graphics from the data: public void BuildMesh () { DTileMap.DTileMap map = new DTileMap.DTileMap (size_x, size_z); int numTiles = size_x * size_z; int numTris = numTiles * 2; int vsize_x = size_x + 1; int vsize_z = size_z + 1; int numVerts = vsize_x * vsize_z; // Generate the mesh data Vector3[] vertices = new Vector3[ numVerts ]; Vector3[] normals = new Vector3[numVerts]; Vector2[] uv = new Vector2[numVerts]; int[] triangles = new int[ numTris * 3 ]; int x, z; for (z=0; z < vsize_z; z++) { for (x=0; x < vsize_x; x++) { normals [z * vsize_x + x] = Vector3.up; uv [z * vsize_x + x] = new Vector2 ((float)x / size_x, 1f - (float)z / size_z); } } for (z=0; z < vsize_z; z+=1) { for (x=0; x < vsize_x; x+=1) { if (x == vsize_x - 1 && z == vsize_z - 1) { vertices [z * vsize_x + x] = DTileMap.DTileMap.map_data [x - 1, z - 1].vertices [3]; } else if (z == vsize_z - 1) { vertices [z * vsize_x + x] = DTileMap.DTileMap.map_data [x, z - 1].vertices [2]; } else if (x == vsize_x - 1) { vertices [z * vsize_x + x] = DTileMap.DTileMap.map_data [x - 1, z].vertices [1]; } else { vertices [z * vsize_x + x] = DTileMap.DTileMap.map_data [x, z].vertices [0]; vertices [z * vsize_x + x+1] = DTileMap.DTileMap.map_data [x, z].vertices [1]; vertices [(z+1) * vsize_x + x] = DTileMap.DTileMap.map_data [x, z].vertices [2]; vertices [(z+1) * vsize_x + x+1] = DTileMap.DTileMap.map_data [x, z].vertices [3]; } } } } for (z=0; z < size_z; z++) { for (x=0; x < size_x; x++) { int squareIndex = z * size_x + x; int triOffset = squareIndex * 6; triangles [triOffset + 0] = z * vsize_x + x + 0; triangles [triOffset + 2] = z * vsize_x + x + vsize_x + 0; triangles [triOffset + 1] = z * vsize_x + x + vsize_x + 1; triangles [triOffset + 3] = z * vsize_x + x + 0; triangles [triOffset + 5] = z * vsize_x + x + vsize_x + 1; triangles [triOffset + 4] = z * vsize_x + x + 1; } } // Create a new Mesh and populate with the data Mesh mesh = new Mesh (); mesh.vertices = vertices; mesh.triangles = triangles; mesh.normals = normals; mesh.uv = uv; // Assign our mesh to our filter/renderer/collider MeshFilter mesh_filter = GetComponent<MeshFilter> (); MeshCollider mesh_collider = GetComponent<MeshCollider> (); mesh_filter.mesh = mesh; mesh_collider.sharedMesh = mesh; calculateMeshTangents (mesh); BuildTexture (map); } If this looks familiar to you, its because i got most of it from Quill18. I've been slowly adapting it for my uses. And please include any suggestions you have for my code. I'm still in the very early prototyping stage.

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