Name
poisson - random 2d poisson point generator
Synopsis
poisson [options]
Description
poisson generates random points on a 2d plane with a Poisson law dis-
tribution. The idea is to generate random points with an homogeneous
distribution within the rectangle. The algorithm is simple: points are
generated randomly within the given limits, points are rejected if they
are too close to any previously generated point. Once the requested
number of points has been generated, output the point coordinates to
stdout.
The minimum distance between points is computed by the following for-
mula:
If the requested rectangle has a width of L and a height of h, and n
points are requested, we have:
dmin = sqrt(L*h / 2*n)
The defaults are the following : rectangle is located between -75 and
+75 in x and y, points are generated with integer coordinate values,
and 20 points will be generated.
Options
-r xmin xmax ymin ymax
Defines the rectangle in which points will be generated. Ranges
may be given as integer or floating-point values.
-f Generate floating-point valued coordinates (default is integer).
-n Change the number of points to generate. Default is 20.
-h hom Used to specify an homogeneity factor
Bugs
This is the simplest possible implementation of a Poisson generator.
As a result, trying to generate a high number of points (>500) will
require a very intensive random point generation before having all the
requested points. Another approach would be to generate random points
only within an allowed surface, but this is far from trivial.