moving an object from point to point in a linear path

Question

I'm trying to move a sprite across the screen in a straight line, towards on the location where've I touched the screen, what i did was upon the update() in each loop , it checks to see if the current sprite's location x y is == to the destination x ,y . if it hasn't sprite's x++ and y++... the thing is ..it ain't moving in a straight line... as there are cases where the x or y coordinate reaches the destination x or y first... how do i changed it so that the both x and y meets the destination together?

my current pseudo code for the sprite object

             destX = destination X
             destY = destination Y

             posX = current X
             posY = current Y
               public void update(){
                if(destX > posX && destY < posY)
                {

                    posX++;
                    posY--;
                }
                else if (destX > posX && destY > posY){
                    posX++;
                    posY++;
                }
                else if(destX < posX && destY > posY)
                {
                    posX--;
                    posY++;
                }
                else if(destX < posX && destY < posY){
                    posX--;
                    posY--;
                }
                else if(destX < posX)
                    posX--;
                else if(destX > posX)
                    posX++;
                else if(destY < posY)
                    posY--;
                else if(destY > posY)
                    posY++;

Answer 1

Check out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bresenham%27s_line_algorithm

This simple algorithm will tell you each X,Y coordinate on a line between two points. You could use this algorithm to compute all of the positions it needs to visit, store the coordinates in an array, and iterate over the array as you update the position.

From the Article:

  function line(x0, x1, y0, y1)
         int deltax := x1 - x0
         int deltay := y1 - y0
         real error := 0
         real deltaerr := abs (deltay / deltax)    // Assume deltax != 0 (line is not vertical),
               // note that this division needs to be done in a way that preserves the fractional part
         int y := y0
         for x from x0 to x1
             plot(x,y)
             error := error + deltaerr
             if error ≥ 0.5 then
                 y := y + 1
                 error := error - 1.0

This is the most primitive version. The article contains a better generalized algorithm that you should look at.

Answer 2

I am dealing with a similair problem as yours. (I have an arraylist holding the history of positions my player has gone and I want to use that to rewind the game.) Instead of simply increasing x and y position with 1 you can:

1. Calculate the angle between the source postion and your destination position.
2. Calculate the new direction using a variable which represents the speed
3. Update your postion using calculated direction

I made a class of that. I hope it is usefull.

import java.awt.geom.Point2D;

public class MyVelocityCalculator {

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        Point2D.Double currentPosition = new Point2D.Double();
        Point2D.Double destinationPosition = new Point2D.Double();
        currentPosition.setLocation(100, 100);
        destinationPosition.setLocation(50, 50);
        Double speed = 0.5;
        Point2D.Double nextPosition = MyVelocityCalculator.getVelocity(currentPosition, destinationPosition, speed); 

        System.out.println("player was initially at: "+currentPosition);
        System.out.println("player destination is at: "+destinationPosition);
        System.out.println("half seconds later player should be at: "+nextPosition);

    }

    public static final Point2D.Double getVelocity(Point2D.Double currentPosition, Point2D.Double destinationPosition, double speed){
        Point2D.Double nextPosition = new Point2D.Double();
        double angle = calcAngleBetweenPoints(currentPosition, destinationPosition);
        double distance = speed;
        Point2D.Double velocityPoint = getVelocity(angle, distance);
        nextPosition.x = currentPosition.x + velocityPoint.x;
        nextPosition.y = currentPosition.y + velocityPoint.y;
        return nextPosition;
    }

    public static final double calcAngleBetweenPoints(Point2D.Double p1, Point2D.Double p2)
    {
        return Math.toDegrees( Math.atan2( p2.getY()-p1.getY(), p2.getX()-p1.getX() ) );
    }

    public static final Point2D.Double getVelocity(double angle, double speed){
        double x = Math.cos(Math.toRadians(angle))*speed;
        double y = Math.sin(Math.toRadians(angle))*speed;
        return (new Point2D.Double(x, y));
    }
}

Answer 3

Don't use integers. This is a very bad idea to work with ints. Use floats. The main concept is: define the number of steps you want to perform (s). Compute differences in X and Y (diffX and diffY). Don't take absolute values: Compute them this way

float diffX = destX - currentX;

Then compute the xMove and yMove values by dividing diffX and diffY by s (number of steps).

float moveX = diffX / s;
float moveY = diffY / s;

And now you have to add for each iteration the moveX and moveY values to the current position.

And for drawing it, you should use Graphics2D, which supports floating points. If you don't want to use Graphics2D, you can round the floats to ints, using Math.round(float).