Develop Reference

struggling to create a smooth-moving snake in p5 js - tail catching up to head

I'm putting together a p5 sketch with little wiggling snakes that move randomly across the screen.
Unfortunately, the tail keeps catching up to the head every time it does a sharpish turn.
Here is the function I'm using to calculate the move, I've tried with a few different ways of calculating the speed, fixed numbers, relative to the snake's length.
It's supposed to work by moving the snakes head (points[3]) in a semi-random direction and then having each body point move towards the one before it by the same amount. This isn't working, and I feel there's something wrong with my algorithm itself. I'm not familiar with these kinds of intermediate random-walks, so I've just been going by guesswork for the most part.
this["moveCurve"] = function() {
let newDir = this["oldDir"] + (random() - 1/2)*PI/6;
let velocity = createVector(1,0);
velocity.setMag(5);
velocity.setHeading(newDir);
this["points"][3].add(velocity);
for (let i = 2; i >= 0; i--) {
this["points"][i].add(p5.Vector.sub(this["points"][i + 1],this["points"][i]).setMag(5));
}
this["oldDir"] = newDir;
}
If you have any idea what I could do to make this work properly, I'd love to hear your advice. Thanks!

This does look like an algorithmic issue / not a bug with how you implemented it.
Here's my go at explaining why the gap between two points must decrease in this algorithm:
Let's consider just a two point snake, with two points Hi (head) and Ti (tail) at an initial locations Hi: (20, 0), and Ti: (0, 0). So, the heading here is 0 radians.
What happens when moveCurve is called? A new heading is chosen (let's use PI/2, a right angle to make it easy to imagine) and using a fixed velocity of 5 we calculate a new position for the head of (20, 5), let's call it Hf. T also moves, but it also moves toward Hf at the same 5 unit velocity, ending up at about (4.85, 1.21). The distance between these two final positions is now 15.62657, which is smaller than the initial distance.
To visualize this, think of the triangle formed between Ti, Hi, and Hf. Ti, and Hi, form the base of this triangle. Ti will move along the hypotenuse to get to Tf, while Hi will move along the other side. The directions they are moving in form an angle which is smaller than PI radians and both points are moving at the same speed so intuitively the points must be getting closer together.
So how to solve this? Well if we consider our tiny snake's movement, the tail moved in a decent direction but too far. One solution might be to scale the velocity vector in order to maintain a fixed distance between points instead of using a fixed velocity. For example instead of stepping 5 units along the hypotenuse from Ti toward Hf in the example, you could step 20 units along the hypotenuse from Hf toward Ti. I'm not sure how this would work out for your snake, just an idea!
Keep slithering!

Fortunately, it turns out p5's documentation itself had the answer for me. By adapting the code from here to use p5 Vectors, I was able to get it all working.
The segLengths property is defined when the object is made, just takes the distances between all the points.
this["moveCurve"] = function() {
let newDir = this["oldDir"] + (random() - 1/2)*PI/6;
let velocity = p5.Vector.fromAngle(newDir).setMag(5);
this["points"][3].add(velocity);
for (let i = 2; i >= 0; i--) {
this["points"][i].set(p5.Vector.sub(this["points"][i+1], p5.Vector.fromAngle(p5.Vector.sub(this["points"][i+1],this["points"][i]).heading()).setMag(this["segLengths"][i])));
}
this["oldDir"] = newDir;
}
I might spend a little time trying to clean up the code a bit, it's a jot messy for my tastes at the moment. But it works.

Dealing with the inverted Y axis while graphing in Javascript?

I am using Javascripts built in canvas feature to draw a graph showing home loan payments, loan balance, and equity based on user input. I am not able to use any other form of graphing package, as the code is part of an assessment.
My graph is drawn by converting data to X and Y coordinates. When a loan price is input, some home loan payment equations calculate the total amount payed, which is divided by the canvas width to get a spacing variable. This spacing variable is used to convert dollar amounts into pixels on the canvas. A similar setup is used to get the years and months spacing pixels.
The problem I am having is that the Y axis on Javascript's canvas is inverted, with 0 being the top of the canvas and 280, my canvas height, being at the bottom. So far, I have been able to work around this, simply by swapping "+" and "-" operators, however, I am currently creating the code that draws the Loan Balance line on the graph, and the inversion is causing issues that I can't seem to solve. It may be something simple that I'm just not seeing, or it may be a more complex problem that needs to be solved, but either way, I can't figure it out.
X = 0; // same as before, iterators both set back to 0 for the new line.
iterator = 0;
c.beginPath // this next line is for loan balance, it starts at 300000 and goes down with each payment made, then back up with each bit of interest accrued.
// due to the fact that the y axis begins at the top, this means that the pixels for payments is added to the pixel count, and the interest accrued is taken away.
c.moveTo(0, loanLocation) // set starting point to x=0 y= loanLocation
while (X <= 510)// loan balance loop
{
X = X + 0.001; // iterates X by .001 each time, allowing an accurate subpixel resolution loop, see above for why this is needed.
iterator = iterator + 0.001;
if (iterator >= monthSpacing)
{
loanBalance = loanBalance - monthlyPayment + (monthlyInterest * loanBalance);
//alert(loanBalance);
//interestY =
//alert(interestY);
//alert(X + " " + monthSpacing);
loanY = loanY + paymentY - (loanY * monthlyInterest);
//alert(loanY);
//loanY = loanBalance * paySpacing;
c.lineTo(X, loanY);
iterator = 0;
}
}
c.strokeStyle = "black"
c.stroke(); // there is no fill for this line, so it is just left as a stroke.
This is the set of code which draws the line, above it are a few variables which are being used here:
var X = 0;
var iterator = 0;
var monthSpacing = yearSpacing / 12;
//alert(yearSpacing);
//alert(monthSpacing);
var monthlyInterest = interest/1200; // this gives the montly interest rate, the monthly interest pixel amount is below
//alert(monthlyInterest);//debugging, comment out.
var paymentY = monthlyPayment * paySpacing;
var interestY = monthlyInterest * paySpacing; // this is inaccurate, the interestY needs to be gotten by multiplying the remaining loan balance by the
//monthly interest each month.
//var interestY; // will be used further down, must be calculated monthly so cannot be set outside of the line drawing loops.
var totalY = 280;
var equityY = 280;
var loanBalance = loan;
var loanY = loanLocation;
When run I get a strange inversion of the desired outcome, I want the loan balance line to curve down towards zero, but instead, the curve is happening in the opposite direction, I have tried two different ways to get the coordinates, the loanBalance way, which involved working with dollar values and converting that to pixels, and the loanY way, which involved working with pixel values directly.
loanBalance provided a line which was the exact inverse of the desired line, it began at the loan value, and curved upwards in the exact opposite direction to what I want, I am confident that the math I'm using for the loanBalance method is accurate, I simply cannot think of a way to convert that dollar value into pixels due to the inverted nature of the Y axis.
loanY provides a line which is headed "down", but is curving downwards at an increasingly shortened rate, this leads me to believe that while the subtraction (addition due to the inversion) of monthly repayments is accurately being calculated, the addition (subtraction) of monthly interest is being calculated incorrectly. Multiplication cannot be simply replaced with division like addition and subtraction can, so converting this value to pixels is proving difficult. The line drawn by the loanY way is definitely being affected by the inversion, but is not a perfect inverse of the desired line, the math being used for that way is clearly very wrong.
Ideally, I'd like to find a way to use the loanY way, it is consistent with the rest of the program, and can be used when not working with such obvious values as dollars. If I have to though, I will use the loanBalance way.
If you aren't entirely certain what I'm asking, or what the code being used is, I can post the program in it's entirety if that would help. I've not done that yet as I don't want to clutter the question more than I already have.

You can change to a Cartesian coordinate system like this:
// get a reference to your canvas element (eg it might have id='myCanvas')
var canvas=document.getElementById('myCanvas');
// get the context for the canvas
var context=canvas.getContext('2d');
// vertically flip the canvas so its Y origin is at the bottom
context.setTransform(1,0,0,-1,0,canvas.height);
This makes y==0 at the bottom of the canvas and increases upward.
If you're using other transformations, then put this transformation before the others.

How to calculate bezier curve control points that avoid objects?

Specifically, I'm working in canvas with javascript.
Basically, I have objects which have boundaries that I want to avoid, but still surround with a bezier curve. However, I'm not even sure where to begin to write an algorithm that would move control points to avoid colliding.
The problem is in the image below, even if you're not familiar with music notation, the problem should still be fairly clear. The points of the curve are the red dots
Also, I have access to the bounding boxes of each note, which includes the stem.
So naturally, collisions must be detected between the bounding boxes and the curves (some direction here would be good, but I've been browsing and see that there's a decent amount of info on this). But what happens after collisions have been detected? What would have to happen to calculate control points locations to make something that looked more like:

Bezier approach
Initially the question is a broad one - perhaps even to broad for SO as there are many different scenarios that needs to be taken into consideration to make a "one solution that fits them all". It's a whole project in its self. Therefor I will present a basis for a solution which you can build upon - it's not a complete solution (but close to one..). I added some suggestions for additions at the end.
The basic steps for this solutions are:
Group the notes into two groups, a left and a right part.
The control points are then based on the largest angle from the first (end) point and distance to any of the other notes in that group, and the last end point to any point in the second group.
The resulting angles from the two groups are then doubled (max 90°) and used as basis to calculate the control points (basically a point rotation). The distance can be further trimmed using a tension value.
The angle, doubling, distance, tension and padding offset will allow for fine-tuning to get the best over-all result. There might be special cases which need additional conditional checks but that is out of scope here to cover (it won't be a full key-ready solution but provide a good basis to work further upon).
A couple of snapshots from the process:
The main code in the example is split into two section, two loops that parses each half to find the maximum angle as well as the distance. This could be combined into a single loop and have a second iterator to go from right to middle in addition to the one going from left to middle, but for simplicity and better understand what goes on I split them into two loops (and introduced a bug in the second half - just be aware. I'll leave it as an exercise):
var dist1 = 0, // final distance and angles for the control points
dist2 = 0,
a1 = 0,
a2 = 0;
// get min angle from the half first points
for(i = 2; i < len * 0.5 - 2; i += 2) {
var dx = notes[i ] - notes[0], // diff between end point and
dy = notes[i+1] - notes[1], // current point.
dist = Math.sqrt(dx*dx + dy*dy), // get distance
a = Math.atan2(dy, dx); // get angle
if (a < a1) { // if less (neg) then update finals
a1 = a;
dist1 = dist;
}
}
if (a1 < -0.5 * Math.PI) a1 = -0.5 * Math.PI; // limit to 90 deg.
And the same with the second half but here we flip around the angles so they are easier to handle by comparing current point with end point instead of end point compared with current point. After the loop is done we flip it 180°:
// get min angle from the half last points
for(i = len * 0.5; i < len - 2; i += 2) {
var dx = notes[len-2] - notes[i],
dy = notes[len-1] - notes[i+1],
dist = Math.sqrt(dx*dx + dy*dy),
a = Math.atan2(dy, dx);
if (a > a2) {
a2 = a;
if (dist2 < dist) dist2 = dist; //bug here*
}
}
a2 -= Math.PI; // flip 180 deg.
if (a2 > -0.5 * Math.PI) a2 = -0.5 * Math.PI; // limit to 90 deg.
(the bug is that longest distance is used even if a shorter distance point has greater angle - I'll let it be for now as this is meant as an example. It can be fixed by reversing the iteration.).
The relationship I found works good is the angle difference between the floor and the point times two:
var da1 = Math.abs(a1); // get angle diff
var da2 = a2 < 0 ? Math.PI + a2 : Math.abs(a2);
a1 -= da1*2; // double the diff
a2 += da2*2;
Now we can simply calculate the control points and use a tension value to fine tune the result:
var t = 0.8, // tension
cp1x = notes[0] + dist1 * t * Math.cos(a1),
cp1y = notes[1] + dist1 * t * Math.sin(a1),
cp2x = notes[len-2] + dist2 * t * Math.cos(a2),
cp2y = notes[len-1] + dist2 * t * Math.sin(a2);
And voila:
ctx.moveTo(notes[0], notes[1]);
ctx.bezierCurveTo(cp1x, cp1y, cp2x, cp2y, notes[len-2], notes[len-1]);
ctx.stroke();
Adding tapering effect
To create the curve more visually pleasing a tapering can be added simply by doing the following instead:
Instead of stroking the path after the first Bezier curve has been added adjust the control points with a slight angle offset. Then continue the path by adding another Bezier curve going from right to left, and finally fill it (fill() will close the path implicit):
// first path from left to right
ctx.beginPath();
ctx.moveTo(notes[0], notes[1]); // start point
ctx.bezierCurveTo(cp1x, cp1y, cp2x, cp2y, notes[len-2], notes[len-1]);
// taper going from right to left
var taper = 0.15; // angle offset
cp1x = notes[0] + dist1*t*Math.cos(a1-taper);
cp1y = notes[1] + dist1*t*Math.sin(a1-taper);
cp2x = notes[len-2] + dist2*t*Math.cos(a2+taper);
cp2y = notes[len-1] + dist2*t*Math.sin(a2+taper);
// note the order of the control points
ctx.bezierCurveTo(cp2x, cp2y, cp1x, cp1y, notes[0], notes[1]);
ctx.fill(); // close and fill
Final result (with pseudo notes - tension = 0.7, padding = 10)
FIDDLE
Suggested improvements:
If both groups' distances are large, or angles are steep, they could probably be used as a sum to reduce tension (distance) or increase it (angle).
A dominance/area factor could affect the distances. Dominance indicating where the most tallest parts are shifted at (does it lay more in the left or right side, and affects tension for each side accordingly). This could possibly/potentially be enough on its own but needs to be tested.
Taper angle offset should also have a relationship with the sum of distance. In some cases the lines crosses and does not look so good. Tapering could be replaced with a manual approach parsing Bezier points (manual implementation) and add a distance between the original points and the points for the returning path depending on array position.
Hope this helps!

Cardinal spline and filtering approach
If you're open to use a non-Bezier approach then the following can give an approximate curve above the note stems.
This solutions consists of 4 steps:
Collect top of notes/stems
Filter away "dips" in the path
Filter away points on same slope
Generate a cardinal spline curve
This is a prototype solution so I have not tested it against every possible combination there is. But it should give you a good starting point and basis to continue on.
The first step is easy, collect points representing the top of the note stem - for the demo I use the following point collection which slightly represents the image you have in the post. They are arranged in x, y order:
var notes = [60,40, 100,35, 140,30, 180,25, 220,45, 260,25, 300,25, 340,45];
which would be represented like this:
Then I created a simple multi-pass algorithm that filters away dips and points on the same slope. The steps in the algorithm are as follows:
While there is a anotherPass (true) it will continue, or until max number of passes set initially
The point is copied to another array as long as the skip flag isn't set
Then it will compare current point with next to see if it has a down-slope
If it does, it will compare the next point with the following and see if it has an up-slope
If it does it is considered a dip and the skip flag is set so next point (the current middle point) won't be copied
The next filter will compare slope between current and next point, and next point and the following.
If they are the same skip flag is set.
If it had to set a skip flag it will also set anotherPass flag.
If no points where filtered (or max passes is reached) the loop will end
The core function is as follows:
while(anotherPass && max) {
skip = anotherPass = false;
for(i = 0; i < notes.length - 2; i += 2) {
if (!skip) curve.push(notes[i], notes[i+1]);
skip = false;
// if this to next points goes downward
// AND the next and the following up we have a dip
if (notes[i+3] >= notes[i+1] && notes[i+5] <= notes[i+3]) {
skip = anotherPass = true;
}
// if slope from this to next point =
// slope from next and following skip
else if (notes[i+2] - notes[i] === notes[i+4] - notes[i+2] &&
notes[i+3] - notes[i+1] === notes[i+5] - notes[i+3]) {
skip = anotherPass = true;
}
}
curve.push(notes[notes.length-2], notes[notes.length-1]);
max--;
if (anotherPass && max) {
notes = curve;
curve = [];
}
}
The result of the first pass would be after offsetting all the points on the y-axis - notice that the dipping note is ignored:
After running through all necessary passes the final point array would be represented as this:
The only step left is to smoothen the curve. For this I have used my own implementation of a cardinal spline (licensed under MIT and can be found here) which takes an array with x,y points and smooths it adding interpolated points based on a tension value.
It won't generate a perfect curve but the result from this would be:
FIDDLE
There are ways to improve the visual result which I haven't addressed, but I will leave it to you to do that if you feel it's needed. Among those could be:
Find center of points and increase the offset depending on angle so it arcs more at top
The end points of the smoothed curve sometimes curls slightly - this can be fixed by adding an initial point right below the first point as well at the end. This will force the curve to have better looking start/end.
You could draw double curve to make a taper effect (thin beginning/end, thicker in the middle) by using the first point in this list on another array but with a very small offset at top of the arc, and then render it on top.
The algorithm was created ad-hook for this answer so it's obviously not properly tested. There could be special cases and combination throwing it off but I think it's a good start.
Known weaknesses:
It assumes the distance between each stem is the same for the slope detection. This needs to be replaced with a factor based comparison in case the distance varies within a group.
It compares the slope with exact values which may fail if floating point values are used. Compare with an epsilon/tolerance

Increasing the speed of a ball in javascript

What I'm trying to do is simply make a ball rebound from a wall. Everything works OK, except the fact I want to be able to increase the speed of movement. Literally, the speed is how much 'x-value' is added (measured in px) to the ball's current position. The thing is, when I'm increasing the var speed, the ball floats out of the bounds, because the rebounding is checked by the difference between the bound and the current position of the ball.
--------------------------------------update-----------------------------------------
I've used the technique suggested by Mekka, but still did something wrong.The ball doesn't float outside anymore, yet something "pushes it out" of the bounds for several pixels/"doesn't let the ball float several more pixels to reach the bounds".
My new code looks like this:
// the bounds-describing object
var border={
X:[8,302], // left and right borders in px
Y:[8,302], // top and bottom borders in px
indX:1, //border index for array Х
indY:0, //border index for array Y
changeInd:function(n){return this[n] = +!this[n]; } // function to change the index
};
if($("#ball").position().left + speed > border.X[1] || $("#ball").position().left + speed < border.X[0]){
var distX = "+=" + (border.X[border.indX] - $("#ball").position().left);
var distY = "-=" + ((border.X[border.indX] - $("#ball").position().left) * k);
$("#ball").css("left", distX);
$("#ball").css("top", distY);
border.changeInd("indX");
speed = -speed;
}
if($("#ball").position().top + k > border.Y[1] || $("#ball").position().top + k < border.Y[0]){
var distX = "+=" + ((border.Y[border.indY] - $("#ball").position().top) / k);
var distY = "+=" + (border.Y[border.indY] - $("#ball").position().top);
$("#ball").css("left", distX);
$("#ball").css("top", distY);
border.changeInd("indY");
k = -k;
}
Another problem is that my code's math is incorrect sometimes, the reason of which I absolutely can't figure out. To test it, try 45 degrees with different speed.
The question is: how can I improve the 'collision-checking' process or even apply some other technique to do this?
the whole code can be found here:
http://jsfiddle.net/au99f/16/

You're very close! The answer is actually hinted at in your question. You're currently using the absolute value of the distance to the boundary to determine when to change direction. This defines a "magic zone" where the ball can change direction that is about 6 pixels wide (given your speed of 3). When you increase speed to something higher (like 10), you could jump right over this magic zone.
A better way to do this would be to test if the next jump would put the ball completely outside the bounds. So this check is not based on a constant (like 3) but on the speed of the ball itself. You can also see how much the ball would have travelled out of bounds to determine how far to move the ball in the opposite direction. In other words, if your speed is 10, and the ball is 3 pixels from the right edge on step 8, then on step 9, the ball would be 7 pixels from the right edge, traveling left. Be wary of edge cases (ball could land exactly on bounds).

Scale a dot's X Y on HTML5 canvas by percentage

I'm working on my first canvas project, and it requires a partial map of the US, with a zoom and center on a state when clicked.
I was able to find X Y arrays of points to draw the country, with each state being its own array. I needed the states to be drawn out larger then these dimensions, so I introduced a scale varaible to multiply each point by.
My next challenge was that the client only wanted 13 states drawn out, but not placed to scale against each other. (Example, put Ohio and Illinois next to each other on the canvas and ignore Indiana). My solution to that was to introduce a fixed X, Y "constant" for each state, that after the scaling happens, add the X Y value for that state and make that the spot to draw on.
for ( var j = 0; j < state.myPolygons.length; ++j) {
context.beginPath();
context.lineWidth = lineWidth;
context.strokeStyle = stateStroke;
context.fillStyle = stateFill;
for ( var k = 0; k < state.myPolygons[j].myXVals.length; ++k ) {
var x = parseFloat(state.myPolygons[j].myXVals[k]*state.scale)+state.posX;
var y = parseFloat(state.myPolygons[j].myYVals[k]*state.scale)+state.posY;
y = canvas.height - y;
if ( k == 0 )
context.moveTo(x,y);
else
context.lineTo(x,y);
}
context.closePath();
context.fill();
context.stroke();
}
The effect of clicking on a state, and growing it and centering on the canvas was accomplished by defining a target scale and number of steps. I get the difference between the target scale and current scale, and divide that by number of steps to figure out how much to add to the scale of the state at each "frame".
Example: Ohio's initial scale is 1.97 of the found coords. My target for Ohio scale is 3.75%. I get the difference (1.78), and divide that by 45 (the defined set of steps) to draw. This gives me 0.039 as an incrementer to my scale at each frame. I then loop through while my states current scale is less than the target scale. Again however, since I need to manipulate the X Y of the rendering, I have then a zoomx and zoomy constant for each state that gets added to the calculated X Y so it can "slide" to the center of the canvas.
All of this works perfectly and I have California zoom/sliding from left to right, Ohio sliding right to left, etc. --- Here is my problem.
I have a series of dots to indicate client loctions in the state. These are simple X Ys that I draw a circle on. The initial rendering of the map includes a loop to run through each states set of locations. I'm applying the same scale factor, and posX,posY variables to adjust final placement of the dot in relation to final rendering of the state
for (var loc in state.Locations) {
var locx = parseFloat(state.Locations[loc].x*state.scale)+state.posX
var locy =parseFloat(state.Locations[loc].y*state.scale)+state.posY;
var txt=state.Locations[loc].text;
var lnk=state.Locations[loc].link;
context.beginPath();
context.arc(locx,locy,locationSize,0,Math.PI*2,true);
context.fillStyle = locationFill;
context.closePath();
context.fill();
context.stroke();
}
When the state is zooming however, the scaling logic for the dots fails. The state scale for a given frame applies
x = parseFloat(activeState.myPolygons[j].myXVals[k]*activeState.scale)+activeState.posX;
y = parseFloat(activeState.myPolygons[j].myYVals[k]*activeState.scale)+activeState.posY;
When I apply this to a given location in the state with
locx = parseFloat(activeState.Locations[loc].x*activeState.scale)+activeState.posX;
locy = parseFloat(activeState.Locations[loc].y*activeState.scale)+activeState.posY;
I end up with X following pretty closely, but in Ohio's example, the Y is somewhere near Florida. Other states like California are even worse with their dots starting more "stacked" on top of each other and end up more "spread out" beside each other.
I'm trying to figure out the trig functions needed to grow and shrink the position of the X Y on a location in relation to the current scale of the state, and keep it on the same path the state is traveling on through the animation (both zooming in and zooming out).
My final attempt before coming here was to get the inital X Y of the location, and compare its distance to the LAST X Y of the state array. I was trying to then find the angle of the line connecting those 2 points, and then use all this to scale. I still feel that I may be onto something with this approach, I just can't make it happen.
Thank you everyone for taking the time to read this, I appriciate any help you can offer

You could just look at the paper I put on your desk, the one with the equation on it. However, SVGs would be more optimal for the project, as you could easily group things together using the g tag and then could just scale the entire group.
However, since you're forced to use canvas at this point: You would have to scale up and down director, using trig given the angle of the start point to location dot and the DIFFERENCE of left or right travelled from the original distance. I will explain in more detail, with actual equations, when you allow me to give me that paper back. However, the only line you really need to modify at this point is:
locy = parseFloat(activeState.Locations[loc].y*activeState.scale)+activeState.posY;