I have a double array that contains the ground height and the water height of each 'block' of land, and I am trying to create a function move_water() that will mutate this array so that repeated calls of the function will imitate water moving along the terrain...
My first instinct was:
For each block, look at the nearby 4 other blocks and compare water levels.
Give 1/2 of the water from the middle block to the other 4 blocks (split evenly, but only if they are lower).
This doesn't really work very well though and creates some weird wave patterns as the water level on any given block seems to oscillate between 2 values
The water simulation doesn't have to be perfect, I just want it to flow to the lowest point
Since you say it doesn't have to be perfect, updating in steps defined in terms of how much water has moved, might not be a problem - even though the amount of time it takes for half the water to move will vary according to the slope and the amount of water. It may still look odd therefore that half of a large amount of water on a steep slope takes the same amount of time as a smaller amount on a less steep slope. But your method may still have potential.
Its not clear to me though if you update one block per call or all of them for each call to move_water, I'm going to assume its not just one because that will look odd.
Assuming you process all the blocks, your rule will give different results depending on the order you process the blocks. If you just process them in order of increasing x coordinate, I can imagine why you might see unnatural waves (A lower block can gain from another block, then give to another block then gain again). If on the other hand you processed the highest points first, or processed in order of the highest height difference, you may get better results.
You need to consider the combined height of the land and water, and I would suggest trying moving half of the height difference, not half of the total water.
If you haven't already done this, you might find it helps to consider 1 dimension, flat terrain, placing different amounts of water in the block to start - just to make it easier to work out what's happening.
Finally just moving water to 4 of the surrounding blocks will look a bit odd, if you mean up, down left, and right without water moving diagonally. Once you've got the flow working well in one dimension consider moving to all 8 nearby blocks in the 2D case (assuming the blocks are in a rectangular grid)
If you are not concerned about erosion or where the sources of the water are located then I'd go with the simple solution you got from your last question. You'd have to build a one-dimensional array from your landscape and after you got the new mean (see my answer there) you run through your two-dimensional array and adjust the heights that fall below that mean value.
Related
So I’m trying to find the rotational angle for stripe lines in images like the attached photo.
The only assumption is that the lines are parallel, and their orientation is about 90 degrees approximately more or less [say 5 degrees tolerance].
I have to make sure the stripe lines in the result image will be %100 vertical. The quality of the images varies as well as their histogram/greyscale values. So methods based on non-adaptive thresholding already failed for my cases [I’m not interested in thresholding based methods if I cannot make it adaptive]. Also, there are some random black clusters on top of the stripe lines sometimes.
What I did so far:
1) Of course HoughLines is the first option, but I couldn’t make it work for all my images, I had some partial success though following this great article:
http://felix.abecassis.me/2011/09/opencv-detect-skew-angle/.
The main reason of failure to my understanding was that, I needed to fine tune the parameters for different images. Parameters such as Canny/BW/Morphological edge detection (If needed) | parameters for minLinelength/maxLineGap/etc. For sure there’s a way to hack into this and make it work, but, to me this is a fragile solution!
2) What I’m working on right now, is to divide the image to a top slice and a bottom slice, then find the peaks and valleys of each slice. Then basically find the angle using the width of the image and translation of peaks. I’m currently working on finding which peak of the top slice belongs to which of the bottom slice, since there will be some false positive peaks in my computation due to existence of black/white clusters on top of the strip lines.
Example: Location of peaks for slices:
Top Slice = { 1, 33,67,90,110}
BottomSlice = { 3, 14, 35,63,90,104}
I am actually getting similar vectors when extracting peaks. So as can be seen, the length of vector might vary, any idea how can I get a group like:
{{1,3},{33,35},{67,63},{90,90},{110,104}}
I’m open to any idea about improving any of these algorithms or a completely new approach. If needed, I can upload more images.
If you can get a list of points for a single line, a linear regression will give you a formula for the straight line that best fits the points. A simple trig operation will convert the line formula to an angle.
You can probably use some line thinning operation to turn the stripes into a list of points.
You can run an accumulator of spatial derivatives along different angles. If you want a half-degree precision and a sample of 5 lines, you have a maximum 10*5*1500 = 7.5m iterations. You can safely reduce the sampling rate along the line tenfold, which will give you a sample size of 150 points per sample, reducing the number of iterations to less than a million. Somewhere around that point the operation of straightening the image ought to become the bottleneck.
my problem is that I have a large set of GPS tracks from different GPS loggers used in cars. When not turned off these cheap devices log phantom movements even if standing still:
As you can see in the image above, about a thousand points get visualized in a kind of congestion. Now I want to remove all of these points so that the red track coming from the left ends before the jitter starts.
My approach is to "draw" two or three circles around each point in the track, check how many other points are located within these circles and check the ratio:
(#points / covered area) > threshold?
If the threshold exceeds a certain ratio (purple circles), I could delete all points within. So: easy method, but has huge disadvantages, e.g. computation time, deleting "innocent" tracks only passing through the circle, doesn't detect outliers like the single points at the bottom of the picture).
I am looking for a better way to detect large heaps of points like in the picture. It should not remove false positives (of perhaps 5 or 10 points, these aggregations don't matter to me). Also, it should not simplify the rest of the track!
Edit: The result in given example should look like this:
My first step would be to investigate the speeds implied by the 'movements' of your stationary car and the changes in altitude. If either of these changes too quickly or too slowly (you'll have to decide the thresholds here) then you can probably conclude that they are due to the GPS jitter.
What information, other than position at time, does your GPS device report ?
EDIT (after OP's comment)
The problem is to characterise part of the log as 'car moving' and part of the log as 'car not moving but GPS location jittering'. I suggested one approach, Benjamin suggested another. If speed doesn't discriminate accurately enough, try acceleration. Try rate of change of heading. If none of these simple approaches work, I think it's time for you to break out your stats textbooks and start figuring out autocorrelation of random processes and the like. At this point I quietly slink away ...
Similarly to High Performance Mark's answer, you could look for line intersections that happen within a short number of points. When driving on a road, the route of the last n points rarely intersects with itself, but it does in your stationary situation because of the jitter. A single intersection could be a person doubling-back or circling around a block, but multiple intersections should be rarer. The angle of intersection will also be sharper for the jitter case.
What is the data interval of the GPS Points, it seems that these are in seconds. There may be one other way to add to the logic previously mentioned.
sum_of_distance(d0,d1,d2....dn)>=80% of sum_of_distance(d0,dn)
This 0 to n th value can iterate in smaller and larger chunks, as the traveled distance within that range will not be much. So, you can iterate over may be 60 points of data initially, and within that data iterate in 10 number of data in each iteration.
I'm working on a game, and I've come up with a rather interesting problem: clever ways to draw starfields.
It's a 2D game, so the action can scroll in the X and Y directions. In addition, we can adjust the scale to show more or less of the play area. I'd also like the starfield to have fake parallax to give an impression of depth.
Right now I'm doing this in the traditional way, by having a big array of stars, each of which is tagged by a 'depth' factor. To draw, I translate each star according to the camera position multiplied by the 'depth', so some stars move a lot, and some move a little. This all works fine, but of course since I have a finite number of stars in my array I have issues when the camera moves too far or we zoom out too much. This is will all work, but is involving lots of code and special cases.
This offends my sense of elegance. There has got be a better way of achieving this.
I've considered procedurally generating my stars, which allows me to have an unlimited number: e.g. by using a fixed seed and PRNG to determine the coordinates. I would need to divide the sky up into tiles, generate the seed by hashing the tile coordinates, and then draw, say, 100 stars per tile. This allows me to extend my starfield indefinitely in all directions while still only needing to consider the tiles that are visible --- but this doesn't work with the 'depth' factor, as this allows stars to stray outside their tile. I could simply use multiple layered non-parallax starfields using this algorithm but this strikes me as cheating.
And, of course, I need to do all this every frame, so it's got to be fast.
What do you all reckon?
Have a few layers of stars.
For each layer, use a seeded random number generator (or just an array) to generate the amount of blank space between a star and the next one (a poisson distibution, if you want to be picky about it). You want the stars pretty sparse, so the blank space will often be more than whole row. The back layers will be more dense than the front ones, obviously.
Use this to give yourself several tiles each (say) two screens wide. Scroll the starfield by keeping track of where that "first" star is for each layer.
The player won't notice the tiling, because you scroll the tiles at different rates for each layer, especially if you use a few layers that are each fairly sparse.
As stars in the background don't move as fast as those in the foreground, you could maybe make multi-layer tiles for the background and replace them with one-layer-ones when you've got time to do that. Oh, and how about repeating patterns in the background layers? This would maybe allow you to pregenerate all background tiles - you could still shift them in height and overlay multiple ones with random offsets or so to make it look random.
Is there anything wrong with wrapping the star field around in X and Y? Because of your depth, the wraparound distance should depend on the depth, but you can do that. Each recorded star at (x,y,depth) should appear at all points
[x + j * S * depth, y + k * S * depth]
for all integers j and k. S is a wraparound parameter. If S is 1 then wraparound happens immediately and all stars are always shown somewhere. If S is higher wraparound doesn't happen immediately and some stars are shown off screen. You'll probably want S big enough to ensure no repeats at maximum zoom out.
Each frame, render the stars on one single bitmap/layer. They are only dots, and so it will be faster than using any algorithm with multiple layers.
Now you need an infinite 2D-grid of 3D-boxes filled with a finite number of stars. For each box, you can define an individual RANDOM_SEED value, using its grid-coordinates. The stars in each box can be generated on-the-fly.
Remember to correct the perspective when you zoom: Each 3D-box has a near-rectangle (front-face) and a far-rectangle. You will see more stars of neighbouring boxes, whenever the far-rectangle or near-rectangle shrinks in your view.
Your far-rectangles should never be smaller than half the width of the near-rectangles, otherwise it might be troublesome: You might have to scan huge lists of stars where most of them are out of bounds. You can realize stars behind the far-rectangles via additional 2D-grids of 3D-boxes with other sizes and depths.
Why not combine the coordinates of the starfield 3D boxes to form the random number seed? Use a global "adjustment" if you want to produce different universes. That way you don't need to track the boxes you can't see because the contents are fixed by their location.
I'm toying around with writing a random map generator, and am not quite sure how to randomly generate realistic landscapes. I'm working with these sorts of local-scale maps, which presents some interesting problems.
One of the simplest cases is the forest:
Sparse Medium Dense
Typical trees 50% 70% 80%
Massive trees — 10% 20%
Light undergrowth 50% 70% 50%
Heavy undergrowth — 20% 50%
Trees and undergrowth can exist in the same space, so an average sparse forest has 25% typical trees and light undergrowth, 25% typical trees, 25% light undergrowth, and 25% open space. Medium and dense forests will take a bit more thinking, but it's not where my problem lies either, as it's all evenly dispersed.
My problem lies in generating clusters and paths, while keeping the percentage constraints. Marshes are a good example of this:
Moor Swamp
Shallow bog 20% 40%
Deep bog 5% 20%
Light undergrowth 30% 20%
Heavy undergrowth 10% 20%
Deep bog squares are usually clustered together and surrounded by an irregular ring of shallow bog squares.
An additional map element, a hedgerow, may also be present, as well as a path of open ground, snaking through the bog. Both of these types of map elements (clusters and paths) present problems, as the total composition of the map should contain X% of the element, but it's not evenly distributed. Other elements, such as streams, ponds, and quicksand need either a cluster or path-type generation as well.
What technique can I use to generate realistic maps given these constraints?
I'm using C#, FYI (but this isn't a C#-specific question.)
Realistic "random" distribution is often done using Perlin Noise, which can be used to give a distribution with "clumps" like you mention. It works by summing/combining multiple layers of linearly interpolated values from random data points. Each layer (or "octave") has twice as many data points as the last, and confined to a narrower range of values. The result is "realistic" looking random texture.
Here is a beautiful demonstration of the theory behind Perlin Noise by Hugo Elias.
Here is the first thing I found on Perlin Noise in C#.
What you can do is generate a Perlin Noise image and set a "threshold", where anything above a value is "on" and everything below it is "off". What you will end up with is clumps where things are above the threshold, which look irregular and awesome. Simply assign the ones above the threshold to where you want your terrain feature to be.
Here is a demonstration if a program generating a Perlin Noise bitmap and then adjusting the cut-off threshold over time. A clear "clumping" is visible. It could be just what you wanted.
Notice that, with a high threshold, very few points are above it, and it's sparse. But as the threshold lowers, those points "grow" into clumps (by the nature of perlin noise), and some of these clumps will join eachother, and basically create something very natural and terrain-like.
Note that you could also set the "clump factor", or the tendency of features to clump, by setting the "turbulence" of your Perlin Noise function, which basically causes peaks and valleys of your PN function to be accentuated and closer together.
Now, where to set the threshold? The higher the threshold, the lower the percentage of the feature on the final map. The lower the threshold, the higher the percentage. You can mess around with them. You could probably get exact percentages by fiddling around with a little math (it seems that the distribution of values follows a Normal Distribution; I could be wrong). Tweak it until it's just right :)
EDIT As pointed out in the comments, you can find the exact percentage by creating a cumulative histogram (index of what % of the map is under a threshold) and pick the threshold that gives you the percent you need.
The coolest thing here is that you can create features that clump around certain other features (like your marsh features) trivially here -- just use the same Perlin Noise map twice -- the second time, lowering the threshold. The first one will be clumpy, and the second one will be clumpy around the same areas, but with the clumps enlarged (refer to the flash animation posted earlier).
As for other features like hedgerows, you could try modeling simple random walk lines that have a higher tendency to go straight than turn, and place them anywhere randomly on your perlin-based map.
samples
Here is a sample 50x50 tile Sparse Forest Map. The undergrowth is colored brown and the trees are colored blue (sorry) to make it clear which is which.
For this map I didn't make exact thresholds to match 50%; I only set the threshold at 50% of the maximum. Statistically, this will average out to exactly 50% every time. But it might not be exact enough for your purposes; see the earlier note for how to do this.
Here is a demo of your Marsh features (not including undergrowth, for clarity), with shallow marsh in grey and deep marsh in back:
This is just 50x50, so there are some artifacts from that, but you can see how easily you can make the shallow marsh "grow" from the deep marsh -- simply by adjusting the threshold on the same Perlin map. For this one, I eyeballed the threshold level to give the most eye-pleasing results, but for your own purposes, you could do what was mentioned before.
Here is a marsh map generated from the same Perlin Noise map, but on stretched out over 250x250 tiled map instead:
I've never done this sort of thing, but here are some thoughts.
You can obtain clusters by biasing random selection to locations on the grid that are close to existing elements of that type. Assign a default value of 1 to all squares. For squares with existing clustered elements, add clustering value to to adjacent squares (the higher the clustering value, the stronger the clustering will be). Then do random selection for the next element of that type on the probability distribution function of all the squares.
For paths, you could have a similar procedure, except that paths would be extended step-wise (probability of path is finite at squares next to the end of the path and zero everywhere else). Directional paths could be done by increasing the probability of selection in the direction of the path. Meandering paths could have a direction that changes over the course of random extension (new_direction = mf * old_direction + (1-mf) * rand_direction, where mf is a momentum factor between 0 and 1).
To expand on academicRobot's comments, you could start with a default marsh or forest seed in some of the grid cells and let them grow from the source using a correlated random number. For instance a bog might have eight adjacent grid cells each of which has a 90% probability of also being a bog, but a 10% probability of being something else. You can let the ecosytem form from the seed and adjust the correlation until you get something that looks right. Probably pretty easy to implement even in a spreadsheet.
You could start reading links here. I remember looking at much better document. Will post it if I find it (it was also based on L-systems).
But that's on the general side; on the particular problem you face I guess you should model it in terms of
percentages
other rules (clusters and paths)
The point is that even though you don't know how to construct the map with given properties, if you are able to evaluate the properties (clustering ratio; path niceness) and score on them you can then brute force or do some other problem space transversal.
If you still want to do generative approach then you will have to examine generative rules a bit closer; here's an idea that I would pursue
create patterns of different terrains and terrain covers that have required properties of 'clusterness', 'pathness' or uniformity
create the patterns in such a way that the values for deep bog are not discreet, but assign probability value; after the pattern had been created you can normalize this probability in such a way that it will produce required percentage of cover
mix different patterns together
You might have some success for certain types of area with a Voronoi pattern. I've never seen it used to create maps but I have seen it used in a number of similar fields.
I'm trying to write a simple tracking routine to track some points on a movie.
Essentially I have a series of 100-frames-long movies, showing some bright spots on dark background.
I have ~100-150 spots per frame, and they move over the course of the movie. I would like to track them, so I'm looking for some efficient (but possibly not overkilling to implement) routine to do that.
A few more infos:
the spots are a few (es. 5x5) pixels in size
the movement are not big. A spot generally does not move more than 5-10 pixels from its original position. The movements are generally smooth.
the "shape" of these spots is generally fixed, they don't grow or shrink BUT they become less bright as the movie progresses.
the spots don't move in a particular direction. They can move right and then left and then right again
the user will select a region around each spot and then this region will be tracked, so I do not need to automatically find the points.
As the videos are b/w, I though I should rely on brigthness. For instance I thought I could move around the region and calculate the correlation of the region's area in the previous frame with that in the various positions in the next frame. I understand that this is a quite naïve solution, but do you think it may work? Does anyone know specific algorithms that do this? It doesn't need to be superfast, as long as it is accurate I'm happy.
Thank you
nico
Sounds like a job for Blob detection to me.
I would suggest the Pearson's product. Having a model (which could be any template image), you can measure the correlation of the template with any section of the frame.
The result is a probability factor which determine the correlation of the samples with the template one. It is especially applicable to 2D cases.
It has the advantage to be independent from the sample absolute value, since the result is dependent on the covariance related with the mean of the samples.
Once you detect an high probability, you can track the successive frames in the neightboor of the original position, and select the best correlation factor.
However, the size and the rotation of the template matter, but this is not the case as I can understand. You can customize the detection with any shape since the template image could represent any configuration.
Here is a single pass algorithm implementation , that I've used and works correctly.
This has got to be a well reasearched topic and I suspect there won't be any 100% accurate solution.
Some links which might be of use:
Learning patterns of activity using real-time tracking. A paper by two guys from MIT.
Kalman Filter. Especially the Computer Vision part.
Motion Tracker. A student project, which also has code and sample videos I believe.
Of course, this might be overkill for you, but hope it helps giving you other leads.
Simple is good. I'd start doing something like:
1) over a small rectangle, that surrounds a spot:
2) apply a weighted average of all the pixel coordinates in the area
3) call the averaged X and Y values the objects position
4) while scanning these pixels, do something to approximate the bounding box size
5) repeat next frame with a slightly enlarged bounding box so you don't clip spot that moves
The weight for the average should go to zero for pixels below some threshold. Number 4 can be as simple as tracking the min/max position of anything brighter than the same threshold.
This will of course have issues with spots that overlap or cross paths. But for some reason I keep thinking you're tracking stars with some unknown camera motion, in which case this should be fine.
I'm afraid that blob tracking is not simple, not if you want to do it well.
Start with blob detection as genpfault says.
Now you have spots on every frame and you need to link them up. If the blobs are moving independently, you can use some sort of correspondence algorithm to link them up. See for instance http://server.cs.ucf.edu/~vision/papers/01359751.pdf.
Now you may have collisions. You can use mixture of gaussians to try to separate them, give up and let the tracks cross, use any other before-and-after information to resolve the collisions (e.g. if A and B collide and A is brighter before and will be brighter after, you can keep track of A; if A and B move along predictable trajectories, you can use that also).
Or you can collaborate with a lab that does this sort of stuff all the time.