Laying out overlapping rectangles - algorithm

I am trying to layout a bunch of overlapping rectangles that start out like this:
alt text http://img690.imageshack.us/img690/209/picture1bp.png
The 2-pass algorithm I thought up is roughly:
// Pass 1 - Move all rectangles to the right until they do not overlap any other rectangles
rects = getRectsSortedOnTopLeft(); // topmost first, all rects same size
foreach(rect in rects)
{
while(rect.collidingRects().size() != 0)
{
rect.x += RECT_SIZE;
}
}
This (probably) ends up with rectangles laid out like:
alt text http://img685.imageshack.us/img685/9963/picture2bc.png
This is not aesthetically pleasing so I thought of a second pass which would move them all left starting again from the topmost:
// Pass 2
foreach(rect in rects)
{
while(rect.x >= LEFT_MARGIN)
{
assert(rect.collidingRects().size() == 0);
rect.x -= RECT_WIDTH;
if(rect.collidingRects().size() != 0)
{
rect.x += RECT_WIDTH;
break;
}
}
}
I think this should end up looking like below (looks exactly correct in practice):
alt text http://img511.imageshack.us/img511/7059/picture3za.png
However, I am wary of this algorithm because I am not sure if it will lay out correctly in all cases and it may be really slow. Do you think this algorithm can work? Can you make some suggestions on a better algorithm?

I think that this problem is of polynomial complexity. Assuming your example's limitation of only two rectangles overlapping at any given point is not a true limitation of the problem, you would need to try every possible order of bumping the rectangles to the right in order to produce the optimal (least wide) result. This is a form of space packing problem, and those are Hard unless your data set is small enough to brute force.
However, one small improvement to your pseudocode is possible, which would improve its performance in many cases.
Consider this desired final result:
A
A C
A C E
A C E
B C E
B D E
B D F
B D F
D F
F
(where all four of one character are a single rectangle)
Your first pass would move everything except A to the right, forming a staircase. Then in the second pass your code would decline to move B to the left margin, because the first attempt to move it would overlap with E. What you need to do is start at the left margin and check for the leftmost position you can move each rectangle to in pass 2.
Pseudocode:
// Pass 1 - Move all rectangles to the right until they do not overlap any other rectangles
rects = getRectsSortedOnTopLeft(); // topmost first, all rects same width
foreach(rect in rects)
while(rect.collidingRects())
rect.x += RECT_WIDTH;
// Pass 2 - Move all rectangles to the leftmost position in which they don't overlap any other rectangles
foreach(rect in rects)
for(i=LEFT_MARGIN; i+=RECT_WIDTH; i<rect.x)
{
o = rect.x;
rect.x = i;
if(rect.collidingRects())
rect.x = o;
}

You could use a physics-based approach, where the blocks are rigid bodies an fall to the left:
No, this wouldn't produce the best result all the time, but having watched your screencast I think it would be very intuitive to use in an interactive program, and it might be suitable :)

Related

TLE in RECTNG1 spoj problem on finding the number of separate blocks formed by rectangles with integer coordinates

I am trying to solve
the SPOJ problem on rectangles.
Problem statement:
There are n rectangles drawn on the plane. Each rectangle has sides parallel to the coordinate axes and integer coordinates of vertices.
We define a block as follows:
each rectangle is a block,
if two distinct blocks have a common segment then they form the new block otherwise we say that these blocks are separate.
Write a program that for each test case:
reads the number of rectangles and coordinates of their vertices;
finds the number of separate blocks formed by the rectangles;
writes the result to the standard output.
Input:
The number of test cases t is in the first line of input, then t test cases follow separated by an empty line.
In the first line of a test case there is an integer n, 1 <= n <= 7000, which is the number of rectangles. In the following n lines there are coordinates of rectangles. Each rectangle is described by four numbers: coordinates x, y of the bottom-left vertex and coordinates x, y of the top-right vertex. All these coordinates are non-negative integers not greater than 10000.
Output:
For each test case you should output one line with the number of separate blocks formed by the given rectangles.
My approach:
Check for every pair of rectangle r_i and r_j whether they are separate or not based on that set adjacency matrix mat[i][j] and mat[j][i] to true or false respectively
Then run DFS on the constructed graph to count number of connected paths. This count will represent number of separate block.
As number of rectangles is at most 7000, looking at every pair will not cross 10^7. Still I am getting TLE (time limit exceeded).
How can I solve this problem more efficiently?
void comp() {
list.clear();
scanI(n);
REP(i,1,n) {
Rec rec;
scanI(rec.p);
scanI(rec.q);
scanI(rec.r);
scanI(rec.s);
list.pb(rec);
}
REP(i,0,list.size()-2){
Rec rec = list[i];
p = rec.p;
q = rec.q;
r = rec.r;
s = rec.s;
REP(j,i+1,list.size()-1) {
Rec m = list[j];
a = m.p;
b = m.q;
c = m.r;
d = m.s;
if(!isSeparate()) {
eList[i].pb(j); //adjacency list for rec_i
eList[j].pb(i);//adjacency list for rec_j
}
}
}
int cnt=0;
REP(i,0,n-1) {
if(!vis[i]){
cnt++;
dfs(i);
}
}
printf("%d\n",cnt);
}
bool isSeparate(){
if(s<b || d<q || r<a || c<p) return true;
if((r==a && q==d)||(c==p && b==s)||(a==r && b==s)||(p==c && q==d)) return true;
else return false;
}
void dfs(int s) {
cout<<"Visited : "<<s<<endl;
if(vis[s]) return;
vis[s] = true;
REP(i,0,eList[s].size()-1){
if(!vis[eList[s][i]]){
dfs(eList[s][i]);
}
}
}
I've thought of a couple of more algorithmic improvements.
Use a fast union/find data structure instead of building an adjacency-list representation of the graph. Then if one rectangle intersects another rectangle you can stop right then -- there's no need to continue testing it against all other rectangles seen so far. With this in place, problem instances in which most rectangles intersect most other rectangles will be solved very quickly.
There's still the need to efficiently handle problem instances in which most rectangles intersect few or no other rectangles. A couple of observations:
A rectangle can only overlap another rectangle if both their vertical and horizontal extents overlap.
If we have n non-overlapping rectangles centered at the grid points of some h*w grid, it must be that min(h, w) <= sqrt(n).
Suppose the problem instance has the form of the second bullet point above -- an h*w grid of non-overlapping rectangles, with h*w = n but h and w otherwise unknown. As you process each rectangle, insert its vertical extent into a data structure that enables fast point-in-interval queries, such as an interval tree or segment tree, and insert its horizontal extent into another such data structure. The obvious way of using this information -- by looking up all rectangles that overlap the current rectangle vertically, and looking up all rectangles that overlap it horizontally, and then intersecting these 2 lists -- doesn't give much speed advantage, because one of these lists could be very long. What you can do instead is to simply pick the shorter of these 2 lists and test every rectangle in it (as before, stopping as soon as an overlap is detected). This is fast, because we know that the shorter list can have at most sqrt(7000) rectangles in it.
I haven't proven that a grid of non-overlapping rectangles is a true worst case for this algorithm, but I'm confident the above approach will work quickly in any case.

Determine if a point is in the union of rectangles

I have a set of axis parallel 2d rectangles defined by their top left and bottom right hand corners(all in integer coordinates). Given a point query, how can you efficiently determine if it is in one of the rectangles? I just need a yes/no answer and don't need to worry about which rectangle it is in.
I can check if (x,y) is in ((x1, y1), (x2, y2)) by seeing if x is between x1 and x2 and y is between y1 and y2. I can do this separately for each rectangle which runs in linear time in the number of rectangles. But as I have a lot of rectangles and I will do a lot of point queries I would like something faster.
The answer depends a little bit on how many rectangles you have. The brute force method checks your coordinates against each rectangular pair in turn:
found = false
for each r in rectangles:
if point.x > r.x1 && point.x < r.x2:
if point.y > r.y1 && point.y < r.y2
found = true
break
You can get more efficient by sorting the rectangles into regions, and looking at "bounding rectangles". You then do a binary search through a tree of ever-decreasing bounding rectangles. This takes a bit more work up front, but it makes the lookup O(ln(n)) rather than O(n) - for large collections of rectangles and many lookups, the performance improvement will be significant. You can see a version of this (which looks at intersection of a rectangle with a set of rectangles - but you easily adapt to "point within") in this earlier answer. More generally, look at the topic of quad trees which are exactly the kind of data structure you would need for a 2D problem like this.
A slightly less efficient (but faster) method would sort the rectangles by lower left corner (for example) - you then need to search only a subset of the rectangles.
If the coordinates are integer type, you could make a binary mask - then the lookup is a single operation (in your case this would require a 512MB lookup table). If your space is relatively sparsely populated (i.e. the probability of a "miss" is quite large) then you could consider using an undersampled bit map (e.g. using coordinates/8) - then map size drops to 8M, and if you have "no hit" you save yourself the expense of looking more closely. Of course you have to round down the left/bottom, and round up the top/right coordinates to make this work right.
Expanding a little bit with an example:
Imagine coordinates can be just 0 - 15 in x, and 0 - 7 in y. There are three rectangles (all [x1 y1 x2 y2]: [2 3 4 5], [3 4 6 7] and [7 1 10 5]. We can draw these in a matrix (I mark the bottom left hand corner with the number of the rectangle - note that 1 and 2 overlap):
...xxxx.........
...xxxx.........
..xxxxx.........
..x2xxxxxxx.....
..1xx..xxxx.....
.......xxxx.....
.......3xxx.....
................
You can turn this into an array of zeros and ones - so that "is there a rectangle at this point" is the same as "is this bit set". A single lookup will give you the answer. To save space you could downsample the array - if there is still no hit, you have your answer, but if there is a hit you would need to check "is this real" - so it saves less time, and savings depend on sparseness of your matrix (sparser = faster). Subsampled array would look like this (2x downsampling):
.oxx....
.xxooo..
.oooxo..
...ooo..
I use x to mark "if you hit this point, you are sure to be in a rectangle", and o to say "some of these are a rectangle". Many of the points are now "maybe", and less time is saved. If you did more severe downsampling you might consider having a two-bit mask: this would allow you to say "this entire block is filled with rectangles" (i.e. - no further processing needed: the x above) or "further processing needed" (like the o above). This soon starts to be more complicated than the Q-tree approach...
Bottom line: the more sorting / organizing of the rectangles you do up front, the faster you can do the lookup.
My favourite for a variety of 2D geometry queries is Sweep Line Algorithm. It's widely utilize in CAD software, which would be my wild guess for the purpose of your program.
Basically, you order all points and all polygon vertices (all 4 rectangle corners in your case) along X-axis, and advance along X-axis from one point to the next. In case of non-Manhattan geometries you would also introduce intermediate points, the segment intersections.
The data structure is a balanced tree of the points and polygon (rectangle) edge intersections with the vertical line at the current X-position, ordered in Y-direction. If the structure is properly maintained it's very easy to tell whether a point at the current X-position is contained in a rectangle or not: just examine Y-orientation of the vertically adjacent to the point edge intersections. If rectangles are allowed to overlap or have rectangle holes it's just a bit more complicated, but still very fast.
The overall complexity for N points and M rectangles is O((N+M)*log(N+M)). One can actually prove that this is asymptotically optimal.
Store the coordinate parts of your rectangles to a tree structure. For any left value make an entry that points to corresponding right values pointing to corresponding top values pointing to corresponding bottom values.
To search you have to check the x value of your point against the left values. If all left values do not match, meaning they are greater than your x value, you know the point is outside any rectangle. Otherwise you check the x value against the right values of the corresponding left value. Again if all right values do not match, you're outside. Otherwise the same with top and bottom values. Once you find a matching bottom value, you know you are inside of any rectangle and you are finished checking.
As I stated in my comment below, there are much room for optimizations, for example minimum left and top values and also maximum right and botom values, to quick check if you are outside.
The following approach is in C# and needs adaption to your preferred language:
public class RectangleUnion
{
private readonly Dictionary<int, Dictionary<int, Dictionary<int, HashSet<int>>>> coordinates =
new Dictionary<int, Dictionary<int, Dictionary<int, HashSet<int>>>>();
public void Add(Rectangle rect)
{
Dictionary<int, Dictionary<int, HashSet<int>>> verticalMap;
if (coordinates.TryGetValue(rect.Left, out verticalMap))
AddVertical(rect, verticalMap);
else
coordinates.Add(rect.Left, CreateVerticalMap(rect));
}
public bool IsInUnion(Point point)
{
foreach (var left in coordinates)
{
if (point.X < left.Key) continue;
foreach (var right in left.Value)
{
if (right.Key < point.X) continue;
foreach (var top in right.Value)
{
if (point.Y < top.Key) continue;
foreach (var bottom in top.Value)
{
if (point.Y > bottom) continue;
return true;
}
}
}
}
return false;
}
private static void AddVertical(Rectangle rect,
IDictionary<int, Dictionary<int, HashSet<int>>> verticalMap)
{
Dictionary<int, HashSet<int>> bottomMap;
if (verticalMap.TryGetValue(rect.Right, out bottomMap))
AddBottom(rect, bottomMap);
else
verticalMap.Add(rect.Right, CreateBottomMap(rect));
}
private static void AddBottom(
Rectangle rect,
IDictionary<int, HashSet<int>> bottomMap)
{
HashSet<int> bottomList;
if (bottomMap.TryGetValue(rect.Top, out bottomList))
bottomList.Add(rect.Bottom);
else
bottomMap.Add(rect.Top, new HashSet<int> { rect.Bottom });
}
private static Dictionary<int, Dictionary<int, HashSet<int>>> CreateVerticalMap(
Rectangle rect)
{
var bottomMap = CreateBottomMap(rect);
return new Dictionary<int, Dictionary<int, HashSet<int>>>
{
{ rect.Right, bottomMap }
};
}
private static Dictionary<int, HashSet<int>> CreateBottomMap(Rectangle rect)
{
var bottomList = new HashSet<int> { rect.Bottom };
return new Dictionary<int, HashSet<int>>
{
{ rect.Top, bottomList }
};
}
}
It's not beautiful, but should point you in the right direction.

Basic rectangle splitting

I'm stuck on some trivial question and, well, I guess I need help here.
I have two rectangles and it's guaranteed that they have one common point from their 4 base points (upper part of the picture). It's also guaranteed that they are axis-aligned.
I know this common point (which also can be easily deduced), dimensions and the coordinates of these rectangles.
Now, I need to retrieve the coordinates of the rectangles named 1 and 2 and I'm seeking for an easy way to do that (lower part of the picture).
My current implementation relies on many if statements and I suspect I'm too stupid to find a better way.
Thank you.
Update: My current implementation.
Point commonPoint = getCommonPoint(bigRectangle, smallRectangle);
rectangle2 = new Rectangle(smallRectangle.getAdjacentVerticalPoint(commonPoint),
bigRectangle.getOppositePoint(commonPoint));
rectangle1 = new Rectangle(smallRectangle.getAdjacentHorizontalPoint(commonPoint)
bigRectangle.getOppositePoint(commonPoint));
// Now simply adjust one of these rectangles to remove the overlap,
// it's trivial - we take the 'opposite' points for 'small' and 'big'
// rectangles and then use their absolute coordinate difference as
// a fix for either width of 'rectangle2' or height of 'rectangle1'
// (in this situation it's going to be width).
adjustRectangle(rectangle2);
This is refactored, but still methods getCommonPoint and getAdjacent... and getOpposite have many if statements and I thought if this can be done better.
The top and bottom values of Rectangle 1 are the same as the big rectangle. The left and right values of rectangle 2 are the same as the small rectangle. We only need to obtain the left and right values of rectangle 1, and the top and bottom values for rectangle 2. So we only have 2 simple if-statements:
if (bigRectangle.Left == smallRectangle.Left)
left = smallRectangle.Right
right = bigRectangle.Right
else
left = bigRectangle.Left
right = smallRectangle.Left
rectangle1 = new Rectangle(left, bigRectangle.Top, right - left, bigRectangle.Height)
if (bigRectangle.Top == smallRectangle.Top)
top = smallRectangle.Bottom
bottom = bigRectangle.Bottom
else
top = bigRectangle.Top
bottom = smallRectangle.Top
rectangle2 = new Rectangle(smallRectangle.Left, top, smallRectangle.Width, bottom - top)
In the above, the Rectangle constructors takes as inputs: left, top, width, height.
From what I understand, seems like you need to have an if (or switch) statement to determine the orientation of the rectangle, and from there it would just be some easy adding and subtracting:
If you know the coords of the inner blue rectangle (and the dimensions of the rect as a whole), then finding the others should be no problem. One of the R1 and R2 points will always be the same: equal to the adjacent blue rect point. and the others is just a lil math.
Doesn't seem like you can get away from the initial if/switch statement. If the rectangle could only be up or down, then you could just make the offset negative or positive, but it can also be left or right..so you might be stuck there. You can make a -/+ offset for a vertical or horizontal state,but then you'd have to do a check on each calculation
Assuming you had RA and RB as your inputs, and whatever language you're using has a Rectangle class, here's a way to do it with 4 ifs, Math.Min, Math.Max, and Math.Abs:
Rectangle r1, r2; // Note - Rectangle constructor: new Rectangle(X, Y, Width, Height)
if (RA.X = RB.X) {
r1 = new Rectangle(Math.Min(RA.Right, RB.Right), Math.Min(RA.Y, RB.Y), Math.Abs(RA.Width - RB.Width), Math.Max(RA.Height, RB.Height));
if (RA.Y = RB.Y) {
// Intersects Top Left
r2 = new Rectangle(RA.X, Math.Min(RA.Bottom, RB.Bottom), Math.Min(RA.Width, RB.Width), Math.Abs(RA.Height - RB.Height));
} else {
// Intersects Bottom Left
r2 = new Rectangle(RA.X, Math.Max(RA.Bottom, RB.Bottom), Math.Min(RA.Width, RB.Width), Math.Abs(RA.Height - RB.Height));
}
} else {
r1 = new Rectangle(Math.Min(RA.X, RB.X), Math.Min(RA.Y, RB.Y), Math.Abs(RA.Width - RB.Width), Math.Max(RA.Height, RB.Height));
if (RA.Y = RB.Y) {
// Intersects Top Right
r2 = new Rectangle(Math.Max(RA.X, RB.X), Math.Min(RA.Bottom, RB.Bottom), Math.Min(RA.Width, RB.Width), Math.Abs(RA.Height - RB.Height));
} else {
// Intersects Bottom Right
r2 = new Rectangle(Math.Max(RA.X, RB.X), Math.Min(RA.X, RA.Y), Math.Min(RA.Width, RB.Width), Math.Abs(RA.Height - RB.Height));
}
}
This code was written in Notepad so it might have a typo or two, but the logic is sound.

How to identify the boundary points of area overlapped between 2 rectangles in 2D?

I'm looking to return the coordinates of the points bounding the area of overlap between 2 arbitrary rectangles in 2D. Whats the best way to approach this that would take care of all the special cases eg:
Rectangles intersecting only on a single vertex ? (the program would have to return the lone vertex)
Rectangles which share whole or part of a side ? (the program would have to return the endpoints of the common line segment)
To add to the complexity, it has to order the points in either clockwise/anticlockwise order. As such, I can use a convex hull algorithm to order them before reporting, but if there's an algorithm that can figure out the bounding points in order directly, that'll be the best !!
Any ideas of what avenues I should be looking at ? I'm not looking for code projects etc, only a general idea of a generic algorithm for which I don't have to keep a lot of
if "special case" then "do this" kind of code.
EDIT: The rectangles are arbitrary - i.e. they may/may not be parallel to X/Y axis...
Just use the general convex polygon intersection method. Look up intersect convex polygons rotating calipers.
Alright, we'll try this again...
Consider a union of the two, made up of areas defined by drawing a line from every vertex in ABCD (in black) to EFGH (in red):
The hard part here is coming up with all of the shapes defined by these lines (both the gray lines and the original lines coming from the ABCD and EFGH rectangles.)
Once you figure that out, create a linked list of these shapes, and assume every one of these shapes exists within the intersection.
Step 1. Translate & rotate everything so that ABCD has one vertex on 0,0 and its lines are parallel/perpendicular to the x and y axes.
Step 1A. Find the lowest y-value vertex in ABCD, and then subtract it from all other verts in the scene. Let's assume for the purposes of demonstration that that vertex is C. By subtracting C from every vertex in the scene, we will effectively move the origin (0,0) to C, making rotation around C easy.
for all shapes in linked list {
for all vertices in shape {
vertex -= C;
}
}
Step 1B. Rotate everything about the origin by an angle equal to the angle between the C->B vector and the x-axis, so that B lands on the x-axis:
// see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atan2
float rotRadians = atan2(B.x, B.y); // assuming ABCD vertices are labelled clockwise
for all shapes in linked list {
for all vertices in shape {
rot(thisVert, rotRadians);
}
}
// ...
// function declaration
void rot(theVertex, theta) {
tempX = theVertex.x;
tempY = theVertex.y;
theVertex.x = cos(theta) * tempX + sin(theta) * tempY;
theVertex.y = cos(theta) * tempY - sin(theta) * tempX;
}
If ABCD vertices were labelled clockwise, the ABCD vertices should now look like this:
A = ABCDx , ABCDy
B = ABCDx , 0
C = 0 , 0
D = 0 , ABCDy
(If they were not labeled clockwise, then the "lies within" check in Step 2 won't work, so make sure the vert used in the atan2(...) call is the vertex counterclockwise from the lowest vertex.)
Step 2. Now we can easily analyze whether or not a shape lies within the ABCD rectangle, e.g. if (thisVert.x >= 0 && thisVert.y >= 0 && thisVert.x <= ABCDx && thisVert.y <= ABCDy). Traverse the linked list of shapes, and check to make sure each vertex of each shape lies within ABCD. If one vertex of a shape does not lie within ABCD, then that shape is not part of the ABCD/EFGH intersection. Mark it as not part of the intersection and skip to the next shape.
Step 3. Undo the rotation from Step 1B, then undo the translation from Step 1A.
Step 4. Repeat Steps 1-3 with EFGH instead of ABCD, and you will have your intersection set.
If the only intersection between the two sets is a line, then the above will return nothing as an intersection. If the intersection == NULL, then check for lines that intersect.
If the intersection is still NULL, then check for intersecting points.
This is probably really rough but:
object rectangle {
pos { x, y } // top-left position
size { height, width } // rectangle-size
}
collision::check (rectangle rect) {
// collision-detection logic
collision->order_coords(coords); // order-coords clockwise;
return collision_result_object; // return collided vertices, ordered clockwise, or 0 if rect hit nothing
}
collision::order_rects (rectangle *rect, opt angle) {
return clockwise_rects; // returns rectangles ordered clockwise
}
collision::order_coords (coordinate *coord, opt angle) {
return ordered_coords; // recieves coordinates and returns ordered clockwise
}
rectangle rects; // bunch of rectangles
ordered_rects = collision->order_rects (rects); // order rects starting at 12PM
loop {
foreach ordered_rects as i {
if (collision->check(i)) {
array_of_collision_result_objects[i] = collision->check(i); // start checking rects starting at 12PM, if collision found, return ordered vertexes
}
}
}
Find all the intersections of segments of rectangles. The result consists of some of them and some of initial vertices. To find them just check for every point it lies in both rectangles. Remove unnecessary points (if there are 3 or more on one line). The result is convex and no point you get is strictly inside it, so (if there are at least 3 of them) sort points from some inner point by angle and enjoy the result.
I've come up with a reasonable method that should cover all possible cases:
All we need is basically 3 steps :
Step 1:
for each side Si of R1
for each side Sj of R2
Check if Si and Sj intersect. If they do, push the point in results array
(This also has to take care of the case in case Si and Sj overlap, which is
basically checking if they have the same equation or not - if so, push in
the points of overlap. This also takes care of the case where a vertex of
R2 lies on Si).
next
next
Step 2:
for each vertex Vi of R1
Check if Vi lies inside R2, If so, push it in the results array.
next
Step 3:
for each vertex Vi of R2
Check if Vi lies inside R1, If so, push it in the results array.
next
Now, order the results array, and return
For step 2 & 3 (how to find if a point lies inside a rectangle) - I'd use this excellent article (the last algorithm stated there).

How can i extract rectangles from a rectangle intersection

Having a rectangle (A) and intersecting it with another rectangle (B), how could I extract the other rectangles created through that intersection (C,D,E & F)?
AAAAAAAAAAAAAA CCCFFFFDDDDDDD
AAABBBBAAAAAAA CCCBBBBDDDDDDD
AAABBBBAAAAAAA -> CCCBBBBDDDDDDD
AAAAAAAAAAAAAA CCCEEEEDDDDDDD
AAAAAAAAAAAAAA CCCEEEEDDDDDDD
And could this be extended to extract rectangles from several intersections, such as this example which intersects A with B & C and extracts D, E, F & G?
BBBBAAAAAAAAAA BBBBDDDDDDDDDD
BBBBAAAAAAAAAA BBBBDDDDDDDDDD
AAAAAACCCCCAAA -> EEEEEECCCCCFFF
AAAAAACCCCCAAA EEEEEECCCCCFFF
AAAAAAAAAAAAAA EEEEEEGGGGGFFF
If the answer to TJB's question is yes, then they are:
(left, top, right, bottom) notation
C = (A.left, A.top, B.left, A.bottom)
D = (B.right, A.top, A.right, A.bottom)
E = (B.left, B.bottom, B.right, A.bottom)
E = (B.left, A.top, B.right, B.top)
Assuming B is completely Contained in A, it would be something like:
Rectangle[] GetSurrounding( Rectangle outer, Rectangle inner )
{
Rectangle left, top, right, bottom; // Initialize all of these...
left = new Rectangle( outer.Left, outer.Top, outer.Height, inner.Left - outer.Left );
top = new Rectangle( inner.Left, outer.Top, inner.Top - outer.Top, inner.Width );
// So on and so forth...
return new Rectangle[]{ left, top, right, bottom };
}
// This assumes:
Rectangle( x , y , height, width ); // Constructor
Also, deciding weather you stretch the left and right rectangles the full height or the top and bottom rectangles the full width is arbitrary, and will either need to be a constant decision or a parameter to the method. Other cases where the rectangles only partially overlap will require more logic looking at the MAX/MIN of values to check for going out of bounds etc.
If A completly contains B:
Rectange C = new Rectangle(A.X,A.Y,B.X-A.X,A.Height);
Rectange D = new Rectangle(B.Right,A.Y,A.Right-B.Right,A.Height);
Rectange E = new Rectangle(B.X,B.Bottom,B.Width,A.Bottom-A.Bottom);
Rectange F = new Rectangle(B.X,A.Y,B.Width,B.Y-A.Y);
this is .NET, I'm not sure about the language of your code, but I think most of the structures look simular in different languages, in .NET the constructor of a System.Drawing.Rectangle is (X,Y,Width,Height)
for more arbitrary shapes a scanline algorithm would work. you will get different results depending on whether you scan horizontally or vertically (your example matches a vertical scan)
essentially you scan along each column or row and break it into intervals between each shape, intervals on the next column or row with the same start and end can be merged.
Given a large rectangle with any number of smaller rectangles punched out of it, you can use a greedy algorithm to break up the remaining area of the large rectangle into smaller rectangles.
Pick the leftmost, uppermost point that hasn't been covered yet.
Start a rectangle there.
Extend it downwards as far as it can go.
Then extend it rightwards as far as it can go.
Add that rectangle to your collection and repeat.
This is not guaranteed to produce the minimum number of rectangles.
The first step is the most complicated one. If you don't mind a little randomness, an easier thing to do would be to pick random points until you find one that isn't covered yet; then go left until you hit an edge; then go up until you hit an edge.
For a general solution to this (the second half of your question), you should use a corner-stitching data structure, which does exactly this (and more).
for all rectangles A
for all corners C of A
for all other rectangles B
if C is inside B
for all corners D of B
if D is inside A
got rectangle C-D
endif
endfor
endif
endfor
endfor
endfor

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