Re: [boost] Preview 3 of the Geometry Library

Subject: Re: [boost] Preview 3 of the Geometry Library
From: Michael Marcin (mike.marcin_at_[hidden])
Date: 2008-10-16 15:57:34

Simonson, Lucanus J wrote:
> 
> How can you model a rectangle that is not axis aligned and is still a
> rectangle?  The only way I can thing of is to model it is width, height,
> center point and rotation.  If you snap its corners to the coordinate
> grid it will, in general, no longer be a rectangle.  Similar to the
> circle, I like rectangle, prism and hyperprism for 2D, 3D and ND
> rectangles.  While non-axis-aligned rectangles could be useful, you have
> the option of modeling them as polygons with 4 vertices that are as
> nearly rectangular as you can make them within your coordinate system.
> 

In my domain we call this an oriented bounding box.

Typically in 2d its represented by a center point, x and y axis vectors, 
  width and height.

Something like:

template< typename T >
struct obb
{
   point<T,2> center;
   vector<T,2> x_axis, y_axis;
   T width, height;
};

You could also represent it at 3 points I think.

Although I suppose in your domain where you use mostly integers these 
definitions might not be workable.

-- 
Michael Marcin