Hi, for the past year in college i've struggled in physics with vector math... After looking at some tutorials on the net, i've started to understand more and more vector physics... I wanted to make sure i understood some stuff before moving on: Calculating an angle between 2 vectors: let's say u and v are 2 non-colinear vectors in 2D space. The Dot product u.v = x1 * x2 + y1 * y2 It could also be reprensented as u.v= |u||v|*cos theta, theta being the angle between the 2 vectors... So if i want to calculate the angle between the 2 vectors, i have to normalize them both, so now |u| = |v| = 1, thus u.v=cos theta So the angle between the two would then be ArcCosine(u.v) when u and v are normalised... Correct? I imagine this would also work in 3D... I wanted to make sure i made no mistake... As I said, i've struggled with it in the past (especially in physics, trying to grasp the concepts of point mechanics while at the same time not understanding whta half the vector stuff meant... :( ) thanks...

that's all correct. carry on :)

Thanks, heh

I have to retake first semester physics because i failed it, i hope this time it won't be as hard as the first... The first lesson last year was all about this vector math stuff, and at that moment i knew i was gonna fail :(

All i actually remembered were some stuff like how to calculate a cross product (with an easy to remember formula, wich is always good :) )

Well, as you said, i'm gonna carry on with making my game :)

as a side note, to get the angle between two vectors in 2D i use the arc tangent, which saves normalisation.

...ok, since I started....

similar to the dot product, is the cross product. At least in 2D.

a x b = |A|*|B|*sin(a, b) = ax*by - ay*bx

so sin (a, b) = (a x b) / (|a|*|b|)

sin (a, b) = (ax*by - ay*bx) / (|a|*|b|)
cos (a, b) = (ax*bx + ay*by) / (|a|*|b|)

tan (a, b) = sin(a, b) / cos(a, b) = (ax*by - ay*bx) / (ax*bx + ay*by);

angle(a, b) = atan((ax*by - ay*bx) / (ax*bx + ay*by));

or in code,

angle(a, b) = atan2(ax*by - ay*bx, ax*bx + ay*by);

which gives me the angle in the range [-PI, PI], whereas acos()., asin(), atan() return angles in a half-range. And acos() has some issues...

acos(ac)
if ac close to 1, there can be some accuracy issues. Also if ac > 1 (like ac = 1.0000001f), it will fail.
similarly

asin(as)
if as close to 0, there can be some accuracy issues. Also if as > 1 (like as = 1.0000001f), it will fail.

there are no such issues when using atan2(). it's the best of both worlds and more :)


but be careful with the cross product in 3D, it's a vector (in 2D, sort of too...), so you can't really use it that way.

best of luck ;)

Well since i was looking at ways to do it in 3D, i think i'll go with the acos routine, making sure to check for errors and adapting the code to include that it only returns angles from 0 to 180...

Anyways, i haven't started doing anything complicated in 3D yet, i need to learn some OpenGL first as well as more algorithms to help me understand how to make my 3D engine, wich is still a long ways off ;)