CODEWITHSUNDEEP
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Kobojunkie
Kobojunkie

Reputation: 6555

Vectors calculations in physics

You are given the radius of a circle, as well as a point P in the circle( x,y), how do you write a function to return an x number of points( x,y), all on the circumference of the given circle. Also, how do you go about finding the angle between each generated point and point P.

Upvotes: 1

Views: 142

Answers (1)

Rycul
Rycul

Reputation: 366

I assume you would want the points on the circumference to be evenly distributed along the circumference. If this is the case, you can calculate the number of degrees between each point by dividing 360 by the number of points that you want. Then, you can obtain any point's (x, y) coordinates as such: 

(x, y) = (cos(angle), sin(angle))

where 'angle' the is the angle for the given point. (This is assuming you want values between -1 and 1, as is the case with a unit circle: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_circle) For example, if you want 4 points along the circle's circumference, you can calculate that there is exactly 360/4 = 90 degrees between consecutive points.

So let's call these points point0, point1, point2 and point3. Point0 is at an angle of 0 degrees, point1 at 90 degrees (1 * 90), point2 at 180 (2 * 90) and point3 at 270 (3 * 90). The coordinates for each point are then:

point0 = (cos(0), sin(0)) = (1, 0)
point1 = (cos(90), sin(90)) = (0, 1)
point2 = (cos(180), sin(180)) = (-1, 0)
point3 = (cos(270), sin(270)) = (0, -1)

Keep in mind that you normally start measuring angles on the right side of the horizontal axis of a circle. (On a clock: At the 3) EDIT: Also please note that almost all trigonometric functions in programming take radian values instead of degrees. Radians can be hard to think with, however, which is why it's very useful to know how to convert radians and degrees to eachother. To convert degrees to radians, multiply the degree value by (pi/180). To convert radians to degrees, multiply the radian value by (180/pi). There is a reasoning behind this all, so if you would like to know more about this, I suggest you read up on radians. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radian

As far as the angle between these points and the point P goes; I will only give you some directions. You can calculate the x- and y-differences between the points and point P (this should be trivial for you, it consists of mere subtractions). Using these two values, you can calculate the angle between the points.

Upvotes: 4

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