How to use atan2() in combination with other Radia

Question

I am struggling with this in JavaScript, but this problem applies to many other languages/environments as well.

I want to have one object rotating towards the position of another object, and I use:

atan2(obj1.dy, obj1.dx) - obj2.getRotation()

to check if the second object should rotate clockwise or counterclockwise at a given time.

In KineticJS, the JS/HTML5/Canvas programming environment I am using, the angle is specified in radians from 0 to 2 pi starting at the positive Y axis and going clockwise. This behaviour is seen in many other programming environments as well.

However, when calculating the angle of movement from the second object with the Math.atan2(y,x) function, the angle is specified from -pi to pi, starting at the positive X axis, going counterclockwise.

To clarify:

The question:

How can I calculate an angle in normal radians from the result of the atan2() function?

Answer 1

If your result is between 0 and Pi, then the result is pretty straight-forward. If your result is between -Pi and 0, then add 2*Pi to your result, this way you will have your result in the interval of 0, 2*Pi.

Of course, it would be nice if you would implement a separate function for this type of conversion, to not duplicate your code every now and then.

Answer 2

If you want the angle to increase clockwise from 0 on the y axis, calculate the angle as atan2(x,y). This however give negative angles for x<0, so you should add 2*pi in this case.

Answer 3

The values are the same in both cases, modulo 2*PI, and with an adjustment for the different sign and offset convention. Pseudo-code:

theta = 0.5*M_PI - atan2(y, x); // adjust for required sign/offset
theta = fmod(theta, 2.0*M_PI);  // make result modulo 2*PI