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# Objective
Previously, the `Point` trait, which abstracts all of the operations of
a real vector space, was sitting in the submodule of `bevy_math` for
cubic splines. However, the trait has broader applications than merely
cubic splines, and we should use it when possible to avoid code
duplication when performing vector operations.
## Solution
`Point` has been moved into a new submodule in `bevy_math` named
`common_traits`. Furthermore, it has been renamed to `VectorSpace`,
which is more descriptive, and an additional trait `NormedVectorSpace`
has been introduced to expand the API to cover situations involving
geometry in addition to algebra. Additionally, `VectorSpace` itself now
requires a `ZERO` constant and `Neg`. It also supports a `lerp` function
as an automatic trait method.
Here is what that looks like:
```rust
/// A type that supports the mathematical operations of a real vector space, irrespective of dimension.
/// In particular, this means that the implementing type supports:
/// - Scalar multiplication and division on the right by elements of `f32`
/// - Negation
/// - Addition and subtraction
/// - Zero
///
/// Within the limitations of floating point arithmetic, all the following are required to hold:
/// - (Associativity of addition) For all `u, v, w: Self`, `(u + v) + w == u + (v + w)`.
/// - (Commutativity of addition) For all `u, v: Self`, `u + v == v + u`.
/// - (Additive identity) For all `v: Self`, `v + Self::ZERO == v`.
/// - (Additive inverse) For all `v: Self`, `v - v == v + (-v) == Self::ZERO`.
/// - (Compatibility of multiplication) For all `a, b: f32`, `v: Self`, `v * (a * b) == (v * a) * b`.
/// - (Multiplicative identity) For all `v: Self`, `v * 1.0 == v`.
/// - (Distributivity for vector addition) For all `a: f32`, `u, v: Self`, `(u + v) * a == u * a + v * a`.
/// - (Distributivity for scalar addition) For all `a, b: f32`, `v: Self`, `v * (a + b) == v * a + v * b`.
///
/// Note that, because implementing types use floating point arithmetic, they are not required to actually
/// implement `PartialEq` or `Eq`.
pub trait VectorSpace:
Mul<f32, Output = Self>
+ Div<f32, Output = Self>
+ Add<Self, Output = Self>
+ Sub<Self, Output = Self>
+ Neg
+ Default
+ Debug
+ Clone
+ Copy
{
/// The zero vector, which is the identity of addition for the vector space type.
const ZERO: Self;
/// Perform vector space linear interpolation between this element and another, based
/// on the parameter `t`. When `t` is `0`, `self` is recovered. When `t` is `1`, `rhs`
/// is recovered.
///
/// Note that the value of `t` is not clamped by this function, so interpolating outside
/// of the interval `[0,1]` is allowed.
#[inline]
fn lerp(&self, rhs: Self, t: f32) -> Self {
*self * (1. - t) + rhs * t
}
}
```
```rust
/// A type that supports the operations of a normed vector space; i.e. a norm operation in addition
/// to those of [`VectorSpace`]. Specifically, the implementor must guarantee that the following
/// relationships hold, within the limitations of floating point arithmetic:
/// - (Nonnegativity) For all `v: Self`, `v.norm() >= 0.0`.
/// - (Positive definiteness) For all `v: Self`, `v.norm() == 0.0` implies `v == Self::ZERO`.
/// - (Absolute homogeneity) For all `c: f32`, `v: Self`, `(v * c).norm() == v.norm() * c.abs()`.
/// - (Triangle inequality) For all `v, w: Self`, `(v + w).norm() <= v.norm() + w.norm()`.
///
/// Note that, because implementing types use floating point arithmetic, they are not required to actually
/// implement `PartialEq` or `Eq`.
pub trait NormedVectorSpace: VectorSpace {
/// The size of this element. The return value should always be nonnegative.
fn norm(self) -> f32;
/// The squared norm of this element. Computing this is often faster than computing
/// [`NormedVectorSpace::norm`].
#[inline]
fn norm_squared(self) -> f32 {
self.norm() * self.norm()
}
/// The distance between this element and another, as determined by the norm.
#[inline]
fn distance(self, rhs: Self) -> f32 {
(rhs - self).norm()
}
/// The squared distance between this element and another, as determined by the norm. Note that
/// this is often faster to compute in practice than [`NormedVectorSpace::distance`].
#[inline]
fn distance_squared(self, rhs: Self) -> f32 {
(rhs - self).norm_squared()
}
}
```
Furthermore, this PR also demonstrates the use of the
`NormedVectorSpace` combined API to implement `ShapeSample` for
`Triangle2d` and `Triangle3d` simultaneously. Such deduplication is one
of the drivers for developing these APIs.
---
## Changelog
- `Point` from `cubic_splines` becomes `VectorSpace`, exported as
`bevy::math::VectorSpace`.
- `VectorSpace` requires `Neg` and `VectorSpace::ZERO` in addition to
its existing prerequisites.
- Introduced public traits `bevy::math::NormedVectorSpace` for generic
geometry tasks involving vectors.
- Implemented `ShapeSample` for `Triangle2d` and `Triangle3d`.
## Migration Guide
Since `Point` no longer exists, any projects using it must switch to
`bevy::math::VectorSpace`. Additionally, third-party implementations of
this trait now require the `Neg` trait; the constant `VectorSpace::ZERO`
must be provided as well.
---
## Discussion
### Design considerations
Originally, the `NormedVectorSpace::norm` method was part of a separate
trait `Normed`. However, I think that was probably too broad and, more
importantly, the semantics of having it in `NormedVectorSpace` are much
clearer.
As it currently stands, the API exposed here is pretty minimal, and
there is definitely a lot more that we could do, but there are more
questions to answer along the way. As a silly example, we could
implement `NormedVectorSpace::length` as an alias for
`NormedVectorSpace::norm`, but this overlaps with methods in all of the
glam types, so we would want to make sure that the implementations are
effectively identical (for what it's worth, I think they are already).
### Future directions
One example of something that could belong in the `NormedVectorSpace`
API is normalization. Actually, such a thing previously existed on this
branch before I decided to shelve it because of concerns with namespace
collision. It looked like this:
```rust
/// This element, but normalized to norm 1 if possible. Returns an error when the reciprocal of
/// the element's norm is not finite.
#[inline]
#[must_use]
fn normalize(&self) -> Result<Self, NonNormalizableError> {
let reciprocal = 1.0 / self.norm();
if reciprocal.is_finite() {
Ok(*self * reciprocal)
} else {
Err(NonNormalizableError { reciprocal })
}
}
/// An error indicating that an element of a [`NormedVectorSpace`] was non-normalizable due to having
/// non-finite norm-reciprocal.
#[derive(Debug, Error)]
#[error("Element with norm reciprocal {reciprocal} cannot be normalized")]
pub struct NonNormalizableError {
reciprocal: f32
}
```
With this kind of thing in hand, it might be worth considering
eventually making the passage from vectors to directions fully generic
by employing a wrapper type. (Of course, for our concrete types, we
would leave the existing names in place as aliases.) That is, something
like:
```rust
pub struct NormOne<T>
where T: NormedVectorSpace { //... }
```
Utterly separately, the reason that I implemented `ShapeSample` for
`Triangle2d`/`Triangle3d` was to prototype uniform sampling of abstract
meshes, so that's also a future direction.
---------
Co-authored-by: Zachary Harrold <zac@harrold.com.au>
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