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Nov 4th, 2001, 02:53 PM
#5
Thanks for the response guys! 
James - Yep, the user can specify any number of points between 3 and 200 inclusive. The coordinates of which can be mixed sign (above and below zero on both axes), the actual coordinate values are restricted to valid Single datatype values, but I am thinking of increasing this to Double if anyone thinks it is necessary.
I have chosen 200 points (or entities as I call them in the program) because of memory and speed of execution issues...
The number of potential 'bridges' follows this rule, where X is the number of entities:
PotentialBridges = (.5*(X*X))-(.5*X)
Therefore, if you have 200 entities, then you the program must make space in memory for 19,900 instances of the bridge datatype! Plus the execution time increases exponentially with a linear increase of entities, it would take days on my PC to do 500 entities, but 200 is done within 80 seconds.
I'll have a distributable set of source files ready in a couple of days and I'll post it up on here, so bookmark this URL for the next week or so 
I admit that the code is not as fast as it could be, I have been pre-occupied with getting the recursive logic right. But I'll get down to some serious optimisation tomorrow and hopefully ditch a large collection object forever.
The method of loading the points in is still a little primitive, but it works just fine. Just a simple ascii text file with the coordinates in this format...
1.445255,13.559876,""
Where the third value is a string that lets you give each entity a name! Cool eh? I thought of that one last night, it all shows up on the print out in a nice orderly manner, more or less 
Only the first 200 coords at most are loaded from a file, this value is defined in the module as a constant.
I have only had opportunity to calibrate the print out details to my own printer (Brother HL1030 fyi) but I have done it in as generic a way as I could for widespread compatibility.
Anyway if anyone has a file full of coordinates they want me to test in the mean time while I prepare the files are welcome to email them to me and I'll send you back the MST for it 
Oh yeah, before I bore you all to sleep, the display of the finished article can be flipped along both the X and Y axes at whim and it will even print out in the chosen orientation.
Sounds tasty even if I say it myself!
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