From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Nov 6 20:14:34 2007 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 0EBCA16A421 for ; Tue, 6 Nov 2007 20:14:34 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from wundram@beenic.net) Received: from mail.beenic.net (mail.beenic.net [83.246.72.40]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id CA6C913C4D1 for ; Tue, 6 Nov 2007 20:14:33 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from wundram@beenic.net) Received: from phoenix (hnvr-4db3d1e3.pool.einsundeins.de [77.179.209.227]) (using TLSv1 with cipher DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by mail.beenic.net (Postfix) with ESMTP id 97AE4A4452F for ; Tue, 6 Nov 2007 21:08:46 +0100 (CET) From: "Heiko Wundram (Beenic)" Organization: Beenic Networks GmbH To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Date: Tue, 6 Nov 2007 21:15:04 +0100 User-Agent: KMail/1.9.7 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Message-Id: <200711062115.06357.wundram@beenic.net> Subject: Totally OT math question about projections X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 06 Nov 2007 20:14:34 -0000 Hi all! I can't think straight anymore (it's a little too late), that's why I decided to post here, and maybe someone knows the answer before I'll dig my way through my uni maths books tomorrow. Just think of it as a brainteaser if you feel compelled to answer. ;-) Anyway, here we go: I have a photography of an object, which I need to process to calculate the "relative" width of an object based on the projection on the photographic 2D surface. I decided to go with the "Zentralprojektion" model (sorry, I don't know the english name, most probably that's the "vanishing point projection", but I'm not sure), and arrived at the following sum to get an (increasingly better with increasing n) upper bound on the (relative) width of the projected range 0 <= xs <= xe (both taken from the left side of the image), when the vanishing point is projected at xv > xe from the left of the image: d = ( xe - xs ) / n relwidth = sum(i=0,n)[ d / ( 1 - ( xs + i * d ) / xv ) ] Relative width meaning that for xs and xe close to 0, the relative width is close to xe - xs, whereas moving right in the direction of xv it rapidly increases (probably exponentially, but I didn't check yet). Just to make a small (ascii) picture of the variables involved: xe +----|-----+ + \ | + + \| + + \ + + |\ + + | \ + + |*| /| + + |*|/ | + + | / | + + |/ | + + / | + + /| | + +--|----|--+ 0 xs xv * being the object to "measure". What I'm now looking for is the limit with n -> infinity of that sum, not because I couldn't live with an upper bound, but rather because I have to implement this (for the biggest part) in integer math, which is pretty close to impossible with the sum given above. Anyway, if anybody can nudge me in the right direction where to look for the limit of this specific type of sum, I'll be immensely grateful! Thanks in advance! -- Heiko Wundram Product & Application Development