←Collision Detection→

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POLYGON/LINE

Checking if a line is hitting a polygon is very much like the Rectangle/Line example. We go through each side of the polygon and do a Line/Line check.

In this example, we make a nice regular polygon with 16 sides (a hexadecagon). The points are stored in an array of PVectors again:

PVector[] vertices = new PVector[16];

// generate a nice, even polygon
float angle = TWO_PI / vertices.length;
for (int i=0; i<vertices.length; i++) {
  float a = angle * i;
  float x = 300 + cos(a) * 100;
  float y = 200 + sin(a) * 100;
  vertices[i] = new PVector(x,y);
}

We do the same for loop that walks through the vertices and gets the current point, as well as the point one step ahead in the array.

int next = 0;
for (int current=0; current<vertices.length; current++) {

    // get next vertex in list
    // if we've hit the end, wrap around to 0
    next = current+1;
    if (next == vertices.length) next = 0;
}

Now we can get the X/Y coordinates of those two points, which form a line:

float x3 = vertices[current].x;
float y3 = vertices[current].y;
float x4 = vertices[next].x;
float y4 = vertices[next].y;

And we can pass that to a Line/Line collision. If any of the lines hit, we can immediately send back true. This saves processing, since we can skip computing the remaining sides. If we get to the end and haven't had a hit, we return false.

boolean hit = lineLine(x1, y1, x2, y2, x3, y3, x4, y4);
if (hit) {
  return true;
}

Here's a full example:

float x1 = 0;    // line position (set by mouse)
float y1 = 0;
float x2 = 20;   // fixed end
float y2 = 20;

// array of PVectors, one for each vertex in the polygon
PVector[] vertices = new PVector[16];


void setup() {
  size(600, 400);
  noCursor();

  strokeWeight(5);  // make the line easier to see

  // set position of the vertices - a regular polygon!
  // based on this example:
  // https://processing.org/examples/regularpolygon.html
  float angle = TWO_PI / vertices.length;
  for (int i=0; i<vertices.length; i++) {
    float a = angle * i;
    float x = 300 + cos(a) * 100;
    float y = 200 + sin(a) * 100;
    vertices[i] = new PVector(x,y);
  }
}


void draw() {
  background(255);

  // update line to mouse coordinates
  x1 = mouseX;
  y1 = mouseY;

  // check for collision
  // if hit, change fill color
  boolean hit = polyLine(vertices, x1, y1, x2, y2);
  if (hit) fill(255, 150, 0);
  else fill(0, 150, 255);

  // draw the polygon using beginShape()
  noStroke();
  beginShape();
  for (PVector v : vertices) {
    vertex(v.x, v.y);
  }
  endShape(CLOSE);

  // draw line
  stroke(0, 150);
  line(x1, y1, x2, y2);
}


// POLYGON/LINE
boolean polyLine(PVector[] vertices, float x1, float y1, float x2, float y2) {

  // go through each of the vertices, plus the next
  // vertex in the list
  int next = 0;
  for (int current=0; current<vertices.length; current++) {

    // get next vertex in list
    // if we've hit the end, wrap around to 0
    next = current+1;
    if (next == vertices.length) next = 0;

    // get the PVectors at our current position
    // extract X/Y coordinates from each
    float x3 = vertices[current].x;
    float y3 = vertices[current].y;
    float x4 = vertices[next].x;
    float y4 = vertices[next].y;

    // do a Line/Line comparison
    // if true, return 'true' immediately and
    // stop testing (faster)
    boolean hit = lineLine(x1, y1, x2, y2, x3, y3, x4, y4);
    if (hit) {
      return true;
    }
  }

  // never got a hit
  return false;
}


// LINE/LINE
boolean lineLine(float x1, float y1, float x2, float y2, float x3, float y3, float x4, float y4) {

  // calculate the direction of the lines
  float uA = ((x4-x3)*(y1-y3) - (y4-y3)*(x1-x3)) / ((y4-y3)*(x2-x1) - (x4-x3)*(y2-y1));
  float uB = ((x2-x1)*(y1-y3) - (y2-y1)*(x1-x3)) / ((y4-y3)*(x2-x1) - (x4-x3)*(y2-y1));

  // if uA and uB are between 0-1, lines are colliding
  if (uA >= 0 && uA <= 1 && uB >= 0 && uB <= 1) {
    return true;
  }
  return false;
}

NEXT: Polygon/Polygon