# Find angle between two Y positions...?

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Hi there! I'm wondering how to (insert name of thread here) ...? Two points, A and B, got x,y,z values in 3D space. If the points where on a plane, it should be easy trig to find the direction, but since the two points are in a 3D space, I'm wondering if there's a way to calculate the angle using only the Y's of the positions...?

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I'm not sure what you mean -- if you want to find the angle between the Y components of the vertices, this will always be zero. Because this is a one-dimensional problem the positions will both lie somewhere along the same (Y) axis and hence their angle is zero.

I suppose you want to find the angle between the two vectors when projected on some plane (let's say the XY plane). The angle between vectors is given by the dot product. I'm not sure but I think you can just construct two 2D vectors by discarding the Z-component and then compute a 2D dot product.

Greetz,

Illco

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you want to calculate the angle relative to what exactly? the x-z plane? I'm a little confused on exactly what youre asking, can you possibly re-phrase the question? exactly what angle do you want?

Tim

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Ok, sorry for the vague question! :)

Anyway, I need to find the angle between two Y positions ANYWHERE in the 3d area...

             | Y      |      |    A |________B_____  X    |/         |     |          x   /|            / x          /__________________Z

x = Intersection dot with ground

I have already calculated the angle between X,Z coords of the points, but since it's 3d, I dont know how to calculate the angle between Ay and By... :S

Any clues?

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Nice art. But as I said: the Y-coordinates themselves have no angle. Imagine the Y-axis:
|||||

Then Ay and By are somewhere along it:
|| <- By|| <- Ay|

They do not make any angle as this is a one dimensional axis. Put differently: the vectors run in parallel. So I think I'm still not clear on what you want.

Illco

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Don't have time to give the answer atm, but I'll venture a guess as to what the OP is asking. Perhaps this is to determine an appropriate yaw and pitch or yaw and pitch delta given a target point. So (minus the details), the solution may be to find the difference between the angles from A and B to the ground plane (or equivalently, the y axis).
Quote:
 I have already calculated the angle between X,Z coords of the points
If you were to post your code for this, it would probably become clear what you're trying to do with the y coordinates.

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The above poster is correct... :)

I'm trying to set the Yaw of a vehicle that is roaming my heightmap....

I have vector3d Pos, Direction, Gravity...
where: Pos += Direction-Gravity;

To find a angle in the X,Z plane, I use:
180 * (1 + atan2(From.z-To.z, From.x-To.x) / PI);

But one cant simply use the same function on the Y plane, because the X,Z are not in the same plane, correct..? <-- not sure thou...

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Ok that is more clear. Then I'll venture a guess:
+ <-- Ay||||------+ <-- By

Is the angle of this triangle perhaps what you are looking for? Imagine the triangle being rotated about the Y axis such that the facing is already correct (according to your XZ calculations). Then this would yield the pitch right? If so the trig is pretty easy.

Illco

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Exactly, and what I orinally, rather stupidly, questioned was how to achieve this "triangle rotation" ... :)

I can find the angle (or direction) on a single plane, I just dont know how to transform it according to the second plane... sort of.

EDIT:

since I got the Direction, A and B points as vectors, shouldn't there be some simple addition or something to achieve what I want? Maybe if I lerp'ed the direction towards the new position.... ? hmm... be right back... :)

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Here's a possible solution:

// input vectors are a and b

angle1 = atan2(sqrt(a.x*a.x+a.z*a.z),a.y);
angle2 = atan2(sqrt(b.x*b.x+b.z*b.z),b.y);
pitch_delta = angle2-angle1; // Or angle1-angle2

Again, that's assuming I'm understanding the problem correctly.

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Didn't work... :/

Now the vehicle is more or less locked to the ground....
This is the code I'm currently using:
        GroundLevel = GetAltitude(Pos.x,Pos.z);        Direction += GravityVector;        vector3d OldPos = Pos;        Pos += Direction*g_delta;        if (Pos.y < GroundLevel+Radius)        {        float angle2 = atan2(sqrt((OldPos.x*OldPos.x)+(OldPos.z*OldPos.z)),OldPos.y);        float angle1 = atan2(sqrt((Pos.x*Pos.x)+(Pos.z*Pos.z)),Pos.y);        TerrainElevation = angle2-angle1;//        TerrainElevation = 50; //should be AngleOf(OldPos.y,Pos.y);        Direction.SetDirection(VehicleYaw,TerrainElevation,CurrentSpeed);        Pos.y = GroundLevel+Radius;        }

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I'll look at your code more carefully in a bit, but meanwhile, are you missing any radian/degree conversions?

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Ah, I think you're trying to solve a different problem than I thought. Try this:

Vector3 v = pos - oldPos;
pitch = atan2(v.y,sqrt(v.x*v.x+v.z*v.z)); // You might have to negate this

I think pitch is what you're calling 'TerrainElevation'.

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