Question

Say I have p nodes on a n by m pixel 2D surface, I want the nodes to be attracted to each other such that the further they are apart the strong the attraction. But if the distance between two nodes, say d(A,B) is less than some threshold say k then they start to repel. Could anyone get me started on some code on how to update the co-ordinates of the nodes over time.

I have something a little like the code below which is start to do the attraction, but looking for some advice. (P.S. I can not use an existing library to do this).

public class node{
 float posX;
 float posY;
}

public class mySimulator{

ArrayList<node> myNodes = new ArrayList<node>();

// Imagine I add a load of nodes to myNodes
myNodes.add(.....

// Now image this is the updating routine that is called at every fixed time increment

public void updateLocations(){
 for(int i =0; i <= myNodes.size(); i++){
  for(int i =0; i <= myNodes.size(); i++){
  myNodes.get(i).posX = myNodes.get(i).posX + "some constant"*(myNodes.get(j).posX -myNodes.get(i).posX);
  myNodes.get(i).posY = myNodes.get(i).posY + "some constant"*(myNodes.get(j).posY -myNodes.get(i).posY);
  }
 }
}

}


}

Answer 1

This kinetic model of elastic collisions is completely unrelated to magnetism, but the design might give you some ideas on modeling an ensemble of interacting particles.