Complex Numbers

[goat_man]

Does anyone know how to use complex numbers in visual basic? Or if it is possible to use them at all??

ie. What keyword do you use to signify i - the imaginary part?

Help would be greatly appreciated

Goat_Man

[Lafor]

Doubt it!

But tell me what you have in mind to do with complex numbers
(if you don't mind)

[goat_man]

To Lafor

I just wrote a simple program to draw a mandelbrot set and am just requiring the use of complex numbers to finish it. Unfortunetly the Mandelbrot set isnt going to work without the use of complex numbers! Oh well...

I thought VB would have utilised them seeing as they arent exactly ultra hardcore mathmatics or anything. But anyway...

[Guv]

You can program complex arithmetic. I suggest Functions for +, -, *, & / used with a Type defined as complex. Something like the following.

Public Type Complex
    X As Double
    Y As Double
  End Type

Public Function Cproduct(A As Complex, B As Complex) _
                            As Complex
Dim Result As Complex

Result.X = A.X * B.X - A.Y * B.Y
Result.Y = A.X * B.Y + A.Y * B.X
Cproduct = Result

End Function
Public Function Csum(A As Complex, B As Complex) _
                            As Complex
Dim Result As Complex

Result.X = A.X + B.X
Result.Y = A.Y + B.Y
Csum = Result

End Function
Public Function Cquotient(A As Complex, B As Complex) _
                            As Complex
Dim Result As Complex
Dim R As Double

R = B.X * B.X + B.Y * B.Y


Result.X = (A.X * B.X + A.Y * B.Y) / R
Result.Y = (A.Y * B.X - A.X * B.Y) / R
Cquotient = Result

End Function

Use the above Functions as required to do your complex arithmetic. To avoid repetitive stress syndrome, you might want to use shorter names for the functions.

I did just a little checking of these functions, and am about 95% sure they are correct. It has been a lot of years since I did complex arithmetic, so perhaps you should verify my algebra.

Give me brief progress report when you get your project done.

[goat_man]

To Guv,

Thanks for that

The algebra was all correct and the program worked perfectly. It draws quite an interesting fractal as well. Thanks for your help

Dale