Help with MatLab coding needed

[DM]Frink

Hey guys was wondering if you could help, I am working on a thesis at the moment and I need a bit of help with some coding issues.

I am trying to get a wheel(a point) to move along a road profile. I have a road profile(which is basically a plotted line) already provide, which is 10 meters long, I just cant figure out how to get the wheel to move along the road profile.

I know the solution is staring me in the face but have you guys got any solutions?

Thanks!

Red Alert

Are you trying to make a video of it, basically the wheel rolls along the road?

[DM]Frink

Yeah thats pretty much what im trying to do, im trying to get a bus to move along, but if I can get a wheel to move im sure I can figure out the rest. Have you any ideas?

5uspect

Probably dragging up an old thread but here is a quick way to do that.

R = 1; % Radius

% x and y positons of the curve
x = linspace(0,2*pi,1000);
y = sin(x);

% Create a plot
plot(x,y)
xlim([0 2*pi])
ylim([-2 2])

for m = 1:3
    % Play three times
    for n = 1:length(x)
        X = x(n); % Current value of x
        Y = y(n); % Current value of y

        % Correct for radius, need to determind curve normals for correct
        % positioning!
        X = X-R/2;
        Y = Y-R/2;
        
        % draw a circle
        r1 = rectangle('Position',[X,Y,R,R],'Curvature',[1,1],...
        'FaceColor','r');

        daspect([1,1,1]) % fix aspect ratio
        drawnow % Update the plot
        delete(r1) %remove the wheel for the next pass of the loop
    end
end

You'll need to figure out a parallel curve of your path offset by the radius so that the circle appears to roll along the surface. Someone else has already written one so I won't do it here.

If you want to make the wheel rotate use patch instead of rectangle and add a suitable texture.