Hi all - I''ve come up with a fairly standard problem that I can''t seem to find a simple answer for. Google returns garbage results, and the search function here is broken, so perhaps someone can help. The problem is that I have all relevant details about a particle (position, velocity), and I need to know what angle to take (from an arbitrary point) in order to intercept it. So I need to pick an angle such that if I travelled in a straight line, me and the particle in question would collide. Or in other words, what angle would I fire a projectile in if I wanted to hit a moving target? I''m sure there''s a way to calculate this without testing various angles to get closer and closer to the correct angle. Does anyone know?

struct Point
{
float x, y;
};

float GetAngle(Point Object1, Point Object2)
{
return atan2(Object2.y - Object1.y, Object2.x - Object1.x);
}

This may be the code your looking for? It returns the Angle between 2 objects in 2d.

Sorry Ximmer - that''s not quite what I''m looking for. The difference is that in my problem, one of the points is moving at a constant velocity. Thanks for offering a suggestion though.

Wht - That''s true, although I can pretty much guarantee (for this problem) that I can hit the target at some angle.

Don''t think in terms of angle for a bit; that can be calculated later. I must warn you though that there isn''t guaranteed to be an intersection point if we have two fixed speeds, even if we can alter direction of one of those projectiles. However, since we assume that there is an intersection, we have to give ourselves the liberty of altering the speed of the object being fired.

Let''s define a few things for easy reference first. Object A is what we are trying to intercept and Object B is the object we are firing.

What we essentially have here is a problem in 3 dimentions - X, Y, and time. Let''s say we know the speed and direction of A. We can get corresponding X and Y velocities using trigonometry. Since our third axis Z is supposed to represent time, we now have the following vector for our object - (X_Speed,Y_Speed,1) - since all speeds are in distance per unit time. This simply represents the direction of our 3D line. We also know where the point started at time 0, so that point is (X_Initial,Y_initial,0).

Ok, now for B. We have a fixed initial position, but can have any direction or speed we want. If you think about, there is an infinite number of intersections, since if we can alter speed and direction of this object, we can have it intersect the other object virtually... anywhere! However, let''s say we are looking for the first possible speed and direction at which it can reach A. In our 3D grid, where A was represented by a line, B is represented by a hemisphere. What we need to do is find where the line intersects the hemishere at a single point. This is simple the closest point on the line of A to the initial point of B. There were a few topics resently dealing with calculating the closest point on a line to a point, so you can look around. Our point would be (Xb_Initial,Yb_Initial,0), and the line would be at (Xa_Initial,Ya_Initial,0) and with direction (Xa_Velocity,Ya_Velocity,1), however you need to normalize the latter first.

Anyways, one you find the point, you can figure out the orientation AND the speed of B. Take both the intersection point and the location of B and discard the Z component. Use a simple arctangeant to find the angle. As for the speed of the object, it would be the normalized displacement of the latter two points (intersection - B location).

If anything is unclear or you have any questions, I''ll try my best to straigten it out. This is really conceptual stuff; you pretty much have to able to picture it in your head to get what''s going on

Zipster - that helps a bit thanks, but my problem is one where the speeds are fixed. It doesn''t matter if there is no intersection, but since the intercepting projectile''s speed is greater than the speed of the object being intercepted, I think it must have an intersection.

Thinking about them in terms of a 3-tuple (correct terminology?) helps, but I''m still not sure one how to get the intercept angle. Any further help would be much appreciated.

Estimate current distance between launcher and target.
Estimate time interval necessary for projectile to travel said distance.
Estimate position change of target during said time interval.
Estimate distance from launcher to future position of target, plus "noise".
Estimate time required.
Fire.

It''s not 100% accurate, but there is no mathematical formula that is for fixed speeds (independent variable speeds may be even more complex).

Are you absolutely sure that there is no formula for the calculation Oluseyi? I have all of the variables except the angle.

I''m glad I helped, because what I''m telling you now is to ignore a lot of what I said, because it was blatently wrong (I wrote the thing at 3am, whadaya expect? )

We can still use the 3D representation, but instead of B being represented by a hemisphere, it''s represented by a cone. Now, the radius of this cone represents the distance of object B from its origin. Since this distance is dependent on time, what we have is a cone that extends into infinity. However, we do know that at any Z value (which is time), the radius of the cone just at that point is equal to the distance at that time. What you have to do is find the intersection between a line and a cone.

that sounds a bit tough for me. I think I''ve managed to find a different solution (or at least one in easier wording). Thanks for your help all.