Re: Gets vertical skylines from grob stencils (issue 5626052)

[Keith OHara]

Joe Neeman <joeneeman <at> gmail.com> writes:

> 
> > We need not let the distance function between A[UP] and B[DOWN] dictate, 
> > because having positive distance between A[DOWN] and B[UP] is another 
> > solution.
> 
> If you check out the dev/jneem-skylines (which is a simplified but not (yet) 
feature-compatible version of Mike's branch), you'll see that I'm using this 
method under the name 'bool Skyline_pair::intersects.'
> 

I see. That makes intersects() mean simply "do the outlined regions overlap?"
which is helpful concept.

The function intersects(), however, is not a very good tool for Mike's job.
It tells us we need to move an object.  How far? Ask distance().  Did we
run into anything else? Ask intersects().  How far do we need to move now?
Ask distance().  The Grobs bounce around like the ball in a pinball machine.

I'm away this weekend, but will eventually convince Mike to simply build
a list of distances where the Grob to be placed starts to overlap an existing
Grob, and and a list of distances where it stops ovelapping, and search
those distances for the first satisfactory home for the Grob.