For some research purpose I've build a small tanks game where you have 1 tank controlled by a player and one or more NPC tanks.
Now I want these NPC tanks to navigate through a field which they have no knowledge of. They can detect obstacles if they are in a certain range. If they detect those obstacles they should save them in a certain data construct that's easy to query. So that they can take them in account when moving.
Now here is where I'm stuck : if my field would be a grid it would be quite easy for me, I would just save which tiles/nodes the obstacle is on.
But I haven't really worked with a grid, my tanks just move forward a few pixels depending on their speed, so a tank can be located on any pixel combination, as well as the obstacles.
Now how would I handle this? Collision detection is out of scope.
Am I forced to use some kind of grid or waypoints ?
why not use a navigation mesh solution? seems like exactly what you're looking for, a method for representing a domain for ai navigation with arbitrary polygonal obstacles.
github is down at the moment, but according to this website (which is worth checking out, it's an interesting Java implementation), this project has a python navigation mesh implementation.
edit
Based on your comments below, I think that a hierarchical representation is actually closer to the answer you are looking for. This article links to a paper describing how to abstract the pixel-by-pixel grid (with arbitrary shaped obstacles) into a node-edge graph for increased speed in navigation calculations. By incorporating this type of hierarchical representation with a dynamic navigation algorithm such as d* (see this answer for an overview of dynamic navigation algorithms), you should be able to implement a solution to your problem.
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I intend to make a 3D model based on multi view stereo images ( basically 2D plane images of the same object from different angles and orientation) inside Blender from scratch.However, I am new to Blender.
I wanted to know if there are any tutorials of how to project a single pixel or point in the space of Blender's 3D environment using python. If not tutorial, any documentation. I am still learning about this whole 3D construction thing and pretty new to this, so I am not sure maybe these points are displayed using a 3 dimensional matrix/array ?
Basically I want to implement 3D construction based on a paper written by some researchers. Mostly every such project is in C++. I want to do it in Python in Blender, and if I am capable enough, make these libraries open source.
Suggest me any pre-requisite if you think that shall help me. I have just started my 3rd year of BSc Computer Science course, and very new to the world of Computer Graphics.
(My skillset is C, Java and Python.)
I would be very glad and appreciate any help.
Thank You
[Link to websitehttps://vision.in.tum.de/research/image-based_3d_reconstruction/multiviewreconstruction[][1]]
image2
Yes, it can very likely be done in Blender, and in Python at least for small geometries / low resolution.
A valid approach for the kind of scenarios you seem to want to play with is based on the idea of "space carving" or "silhouette projection". A good description in is an old paper by Kutulakos and Seitz, which was based in part on earlier work by Szelisky.
Given a good estimation of the silhouettes, these methods can correctly reconstruct all convex portions of the object's surface, and the subset of concavities that are resolved in the photo hull. The remaining concavities are "patched" over and need to be reconstructed using a different method (e.g. stereo, or structured light). For the surfaces that can be reconstructed, space carving is generally more robust than stereo (since it is insensitive to the color and surface texture of the object), and can work on surfaces where structured light struggles (e.g. surfaces with specularities, or very dark objects with low reflectance for a laser stripe)
The basic idea is to use the silhouettes of the projection of the object in cameras around it to "remove" mass from an initial volume (e.g. a box) encompassing the object, a bit like a sculptor carving a statue by removing material from a block of marble.
Computationally, you can do it representing the volume of space of interest using an octree, initialized with a minimal level of subdivision, and then progressively refined. The refinement consists of projecting the vertices of the octree leaves in the cameras, and identifying which leaves are completely outside or partially inside the silhouettes. The former are pruned, while the latter are split, and the process continues until no more leaves can be split or a maximul level of subdivision is reached. The hull of the octree is then extracted as a "watertight" mesh using standard methods.
Apart from the above paper, a way more detailed description can be found on an old patent by Geometrix - it sold a scanner based on the above ideas around year 2000. Here is what it looked like:
I thought about tackling a new project in which I use Tensorflow object detection API to detect Euro pallets (eg. pic).
My ultimate goal is to know how far I am away from the pallet and which relative position I have to it. So I thought about first detecting the euro pallet in an RGB feed from a kinect camera and then using its 3D feature to get the distance to the pallet.
But how do I go about the relative position of the pallet? I could create different classes, for example one is "Front view laying pallet" another one Side view laying pallet etc. but I think for that to be accurate I'd need quite a few pictures for each class for it to be valid? Like 200 for each class?
Since my guess is that there are no such labeled datasets yet thats quite a pain to create by myself.
Another way I could think of, is if I label my pallets with segmentation instead of bounding boxes, maybe there is another way to find out my relative position to the pallet? I never did semantic segmentation labeling myself but can anyone name any good programs which I could use?
I'm hoping someone can help point me in the right direction. Any help would be appreciated.
Some ideas: assuming detection and segmentation with classifier(s) works, one could then try feature detection like edges / lines to obtain clues about its orientation (bounding box).
Of course this will be tricky for simple feature detection because of very different surfaces (wood, dirt), backgrounds and lighting.
Also, "markerless tracking" (a topic in augmented reality) and "bin picking" (actually applied in the automation industry) may be keywords for similar problems, although you are probably not starting with an unordered pile of pallets.
I am developing a wxpython project where I am drawing a diagram on to a panel that I need to be able to zoom in/out to this diagram(a directed acyclic graph in my case). I will achieve this by mouse scroll when the cursor is on the panel, however that is not a part of my question. I need an advice from an experienced person about the method I am using for zooming. So far I thought as doing,
There are lines, rectangles and texts inside rectangles within this diagram. So maybe I could increase/decrease their length/size with the chosen mouse event. But it is hard to keep it balanced because rectangles are connected with lines their angles should not change, and texts inside the rectanges should stay in the middle of them.
Other method I thought of doing is to search for a built-in zoom method. Which I heard about something like Scale. However I have some questions about this method. Will this work on vector drawings(like mine) rather than images. And will it be scaling only the panel I chose and not the whole screen ? After I hear your advice about this, I will look deeper into this, but now I am a bit clueless.
Sorry if my question is too theoretical. But I felt I needed help in the area. Thanks in advance.
Note: Zooming not necessarily applied by scrolling.
Note2: My research also led me to FloatCanvas. Is this suitable to my needs ?
Yes, from your description FloatCanvas would certainly meet your needs.
Another possibility to consider would be the wx.GraphicsContext and related classes. It is vector-based (instead of raster) and supports the use of a transformation matrix which would make zooming, rotating, etc. very easy. However, the actual drawing and management of the shapes and such would probably require more work for you than using FloatCanvas.
I have a pygame program where there's a face in the center. What I want the program to do is have a bunch of objects on the screen, all irregular. Some would be circles, others would be cut-out pictures of objects like surf boards, chairs, bananas, etc. The user would be able to drag the objects around, and they'd collide with each other and the face in the center, and so be unable to pass through them. Could anyone show me how I would do this? Thanks!
-EDIT- And by not be able to pass through, I mean they'd move along the edge of the object, trying to follow the mouse.
What you are looking for is functionality usually provided by a so-called physics engine. For very basic shapes, it is simple enough to code the basic functionality yourself. (The simplest case for 2D shapes is the collision detection between circles).
Collision detection gets pretty hard pretty quickly, especially if you want to do it at a reasonably fast rate (such as you would need for the sort of project you are describing) and also especially if you are dealing with arbitrary, non-regular shapes (which your description seems to indicate). So, unless you are interested in learning how to code an optimized collision detection system, I suggest you google for python physics engines. I have never used any, so I can't personally recommend one.
Good luck!
So I've been making a game using Python, specifically the PyGame module. Everything has been going fairly well (except Python's speed, am I right :P), and I've got a nice list of accomplishments from this, but I just ran into a... speedbump. Maybe a mountain. I'm not to sure yet. The problem is:
How do I go about implementing a Camera with my current engine?
That probably means nothing to you, though, so let me explain what my current engine is doing: I have a spritesheet that I use for all images. The map is made up of a double array of Tile objects, which fills up the display (800 x 640). The map also contains references to all Entity's and Particles. So now I want to create a a camera, so that the map object can be Larger than the display. To do this I've devised that I'll need some kind of camera that follows the player (with the player at the center of the screen). I've seen this implemented before in games, and even read a few other similar posts, but I need to also know Will I have to restructure all game code to work this in? My first attempt was to make all object move on the screen when the player moves, but I feel that there is a better way to do this, as this screws up collision detection and such.
So, if anyone knows any good references to problems like this, or a way to fix it, I'm all ears... er.. eyes.
Thanks
You may find this link to be of interest.
In essence, what you need to do is to distinguish between the "actual" coordinates, and the "display" coordinates of each object.
What you would do is do the bulk of the work using the actual coordinates of each entity in your game. If it helps, imagine that you have a gigantic screen that can show everything at once, and calculate everything as normal. It might help if you also designed the camera to be an entity, so that you can update the position of your camera just like any other object.
Once everything is updated, you go to the camera object, and determine what tiles, objects, particles, etc. are visible within the window, and convert their actual, world coordinates to the pixel coordinates you need to display them correctly.
If this is done correctly, you can also do things like scale and otherwise modify the image your camera is displaying without affecting gameplay.
In essence, you want to have a very clear distinction between gameplay and physics logic/code, and your rendering/display code, so your game can do whatever it wants, and you can render it however you want, with minimal crossover between the two.
So the good news is, you probably don't need to change anything about how your game itself works. The bad news is, you'll probably have to go in and rewrite your rendering/drawing code so that everything is drawn relative to the camera, not to the world.
Since I can't have a look into your code, I can't assess how useful this answer will be for you.
My approach for side scroller, moveable maps, etc. is to blit all tiles onto a pygame.Surface spanning the dimensions of the whole level/map/ etc. or at least a big chunk of it. This way I have to blit only one surface per frame which is already prepared.
For collision detection I keep the x/y values (not the entire rect) of the tiles involved in a separate list. Updating is then mainly shifting numbers around and not surfaces anymore.
Feel free to ask for more details, if you deem it useful :)