real or integer values

[pikzilla]

In an expression which I use to calculate the angle of a rotating cannon, I use an arc tangent function of the difference in Y coordinates over the difference in X coordinates. The expression is:

ATan(((Y( "active" )-Y( "Active 13" ))/((X( "active" )-X( "Active 13" )))))

Unfortunately, it is not working.

When I deconstruct this equation to troubleshoot, I found that the term for the difference in Y was calculating fine, and the difference of X was calculating fine. However, the division of these terms yields an integer instead of a real number, and this integer is what is provided as the argument for the arctan.

Long story short, why would the division of delta Y over delta X yield an integer and not a real number.

Thanks for your help.

[SEELE]

site noteI think you have a few to many brackets)

Yeah, mmf likes to do that when dealing with positions, i guess it assumes that the return will probably be fed back into a position(which is usually a int)

To force it to handle them as 'reals' simple change 0.0 in each entity before devision.
like so:

ATan((( Y( "active" )-Y( "Active 13" )-0.0)/(X( "active" )-X( "Active 13" )-0.0)))

.. used subtract here to avoid more brackets.

[pikzilla]

It works fine, thanks!