How to get the direction (in degrees) between two points?

[s_climax]

ssia

[Mazer]

s_climax wrote:

ssia

What the hell?

Anyways...
you can use arctand to give you an angle in degrees by supplying it with a slope. Of course that's not enough (most likely); that will just give you something between -90 and 90. You'll need to figure out the actual angle by checking which quadrant the second point is in with relation to the first point.

[s_climax]

ssia stand for "subject says it all"

Isn't there just some code I can use with sin/cos?

[Mazer]

Why would you want that?
You wanted a way to get an angle between two points. Given that you have points A (x1, y1) and B (x2, y2) you can get the angle from A to B using arctand (a.k.a. "tan inverse").

code:

angle := arctand ((y2 - y1) / (x2 - x1))

Angle, in this case should be a float. This is also assuming that B is above and to the right of A on a cartesian plane. If it's to the left you'll get a negative angle. And of course make sure to check if the x values are equal so you don't get a division by zero error.

[Cervantes]

code:

function find_angle (x1, y1, x2, y2 : real) : real     if x2 = x1 then         if y2 >= y1 then             result 90         elsif y2 < y1 then             result 270         end if     else         if x2 > x1 and y2 >= y1 then %QUAD 1             result (arctand ((y2 - y1) / (x2 - x1)))         elsif x2 > x1 and y2 < y1 then %QUAD 2             result 360 + (arctand ((y2 - y1) / (x2 - x1)))         elsif x2 < x1 and y2 < y1 then %QUAD 3             result 180 + (arctand ((y2 - y1) / (x2 - x1)))         elsif x2 < x1 and y2 >= y1 then %QUAD 4             result 180 + (arctand ((y2 - y1) / (x2 - x1)))         end if     end if end find_angle Mouse.ButtonChoose ("multibutton") var x1, y1, x2, y2 : real var mx, my, btn : int var firsthit := false loop     cls     mousewhere (mx, my, btn)     if btn = 1 and firsthit = false then         firsthit := true         x1 := mx         y1 := my     end if     if btn = 100 then         firsthit := false     end if     if firsthit = true then         x2 := mx         y2 := my         drawline (round (x1), round (y1), round (x2), round (y2), black)         locate (1, 1)         put find_angle (x1, y1, x2, y2)     end if     View.Update     delay (10) end loop

that's how.

[s_climax]

If the line is horizontal and going to the right, shouldn't the angle be 360 or 0 not 270?

[Cervantes]

no it shouldn't be.
and in this program and in normal cardinal directions, a horizontal line going to the right isn't 270, its 90.

[Tony]

umm... no...

horizontal line that is directly to the right is 0
up is 90
left is 180
down is 270

do you know why? because cos(0) = 1

[s_climax]

Thanks for clarifying that tony. I was right.

[Cervantes]

Cervantes wrote:

cardinal directions

anywho, a line going to the right still wasn't 270.

[s_climax]

Will this work instead?

code:

xDistance := personX - chaserX yDistance := personY - chaserY angle := tan (yDistance / xDistance)

[Tony]

no, lol... first of all if xDistance = 0 you get runtime error (div 0) and even if you don't, it's arctan, not tan... that returns the ratio based on the angle (in radians)

[guruguru]

My example was simply that, and example. Clearly there are errors that can occur (dividing by zero), but they can be tested for and then dealt with.

Sorry, I thought that Turing did it in degrees... my bad. Anyways, to convert to degrees, simple multiply the answer by 180/Pi.

As well, I realize that it works for only one quadrant. Again, this was an EXAMPLE, so you can easily modify it!!!