Efficient way to calculate "vision cones" on 2D tile map?

Question

I'm trying to calculate which tiles a particular unit can "see" if facing a certain direction on a tile map (within a certain range and angle of facing). The easiest way would be to draw a certain number of tiles outward and raycast to each tile. However, I'm hoping for something slightly more efficient. A picture says a thousand words:

The red dot is the unit (who's facing upwards). My goal is to calculate the yellow tiles. The green blocks are walls (walls are between tiles, and it's easy to check if you can pass between two tiles). The blue line represents something like the "raycasting" method I was talking about, but I'd rather not have to do this.

EDIT: Units can only be facing north/south/east/west (0, 90, 180, or 270 degrees) and FoV is always 90 degrees. Should simplify some calculations. I'm thinking there's some sort of recursive-ish/stack-based/queue-based algorithm, but I can't quite figure it out.

Thanks!

Answer 1

Yay I found a research paper!

In terms of computational cost Shadow Mapping seems pretty clear winner.

Algorithm used can be found here and a C# implementation can be found here, relevant bit below.

    #region FOV algorithm

    //  Octant data
    //
    //    \ 1 | 2 /
    //   8 \  |  / 3
    //   -----+-----
    //   7 /  |  \ 4
    //    / 6 | 5 \
    //
    //  1 = NNW, 2 =NNE, 3=ENE, 4=ESE, 5=SSE, 6=SSW, 7=WSW, 8 = WNW

    /// <summary>
    /// Start here: go through all the octants which surround the player to
    /// determine which open cells are visible
    /// </summary>
    public void GetVisibleCells()
    {
        VisiblePoints = new List<Point>();
        foreach (int o in VisibleOctants)
            ScanOctant(1, o, 1.0, 0.0);

    }

    /// <summary>
    /// Examine the provided octant and calculate the visible cells within it.
    /// </summary>
    /// <param name="pDepth">Depth of the scan</param>
    /// <param name="pOctant">Octant being examined</param>
    /// <param name="pStartSlope">Start slope of the octant</param>
    /// <param name="pEndSlope">End slope of the octance</param>
    protected void ScanOctant(int pDepth, int pOctant, double pStartSlope, double pEndSlope)
    {

        int visrange2 = VisualRange * VisualRange;
        int x = 0;
        int y = 0;

        switch (pOctant)
        {

            case 1: //nnw
                y = player.Y - pDepth;
                if (y < 0) return;

                x = player.X - Convert.ToInt32((pStartSlope * Convert.ToDouble(pDepth)));
                if (x < 0) x = 0;

                while (GetSlope(x, y, player.X, player.Y, false) >= pEndSlope)
                {
                    if (GetVisDistance(x, y, player.X, player.Y) <= visrange2)
                    {
                        if (map[x, y] == 1) //current cell blocked
                        {
                            if (x - 1 >= 0 && map[x - 1, y] == 0) //prior cell within range AND open...
                                //...incremenet the depth, adjust the endslope and recurse
                                ScanOctant(pDepth + 1, pOctant, pStartSlope, GetSlope(x - 0.5, y + 0.5, player.X, player.Y, false));
                        }
                        else
                        {

                            if (x - 1 >= 0 && map[x - 1, y] == 1) //prior cell within range AND open...
                                //..adjust the startslope
                                pStartSlope = GetSlope(x - 0.5, y - 0.5, player.X, player.Y, false);

                                VisiblePoints.Add(new Point(x, y));
                        }                            
                    }
                    x++;
                }
                x--;
                break;

            case 2: //nne

                y = player.Y - pDepth;
                if (y < 0) return;                  

                x = player.X + Convert.ToInt32((pStartSlope * Convert.ToDouble(pDepth)));
                if (x >= map.GetLength(0)) x = map.GetLength(0) - 1;

                while (GetSlope(x, y, player.X, player.Y, false) <= pEndSlope)
                {
                    if (GetVisDistance(x, y, player.X, player.Y) <= visrange2)
                    {
                        if (map[x, y] == 1)
                        {
                            if (x + 1 < map.GetLength(0) && map[x + 1, y] == 0)
                                ScanOctant(pDepth + 1, pOctant, pStartSlope, GetSlope(x + 0.5, y + 0.5, player.X, player.Y, false));
                        }
                        else
                        {
                            if (x + 1 < map.GetLength(0) && map[x + 1, y] == 1)
                                pStartSlope = -GetSlope(x + 0.5, y - 0.5, player.X, player.Y, false);

                            VisiblePoints.Add(new Point(x, y));
                        }                            
                    }
                    x--;
                }
                x++;
                break;

            case 3:

                x = player.X + pDepth;
                if (x >= map.GetLength(0)) return;

                y = player.Y - Convert.ToInt32((pStartSlope * Convert.ToDouble(pDepth))); 
                if (y < 0) y = 0;

                while (GetSlope(x, y, player.X, player.Y, true) <= pEndSlope)
                {

                    if (GetVisDistance(x, y, player.X, player.Y) <= visrange2)
                    {

                        if (map[x, y] == 1)
                        {
                            if (y - 1 >= 0 && map[x, y - 1] == 0)
                                ScanOctant(pDepth + 1, pOctant, pStartSlope, GetSlope(x - 0.5, y - 0.5, player.X, player.Y, true));
                        }
                        else
                        {
                            if (y - 1 >= 0 && map[x, y - 1] == 1)
                                pStartSlope = -GetSlope(x + 0.5, y - 0.5, player.X, player.Y, true);

                            VisiblePoints.Add(new Point(x, y));
                        }                           
                    }
                    y++;
                }
                y--;
                break;

            case 4:

                x = player.X + pDepth;
                if (x >= map.GetLength(0)) return;

                y = player.Y + Convert.ToInt32((pStartSlope * Convert.ToDouble(pDepth)));
                if (y >= map.GetLength(1)) y = map.GetLength(1) - 1;

                while (GetSlope(x, y, player.X, player.Y, true) >= pEndSlope)
                {

                    if (GetVisDistance(x, y, player.X, player.Y) <= visrange2)
                    {

                        if (map[x, y] == 1)
                        {
                            if (y + 1 < map.GetLength(1)&& map[x, y + 1] == 0)
                                ScanOctant(pDepth + 1, pOctant, pStartSlope, GetSlope(x - 0.5, y + 0.5, player.X, player.Y, true));
                        }
                        else
                        {
                            if (y + 1 < map.GetLength(1) && map[x, y + 1] == 1)
                                pStartSlope = GetSlope(x + 0.5, y + 0.5, player.X, player.Y, true);

                             VisiblePoints.Add(new Point(x, y));
                        }                          
                    }
                    y--;
                }
                y++;
                break;

            case 5:

                y = player.Y + pDepth;
                if (y >= map.GetLength(1)) return;

                x = player.X + Convert.ToInt32((pStartSlope * Convert.ToDouble(pDepth)));
                if (x >= map.GetLength(0)) x = map.GetLength(0) - 1;

                while (GetSlope(x, y, player.X, player.Y, false) >= pEndSlope)
                {
                    if (GetVisDistance(x, y, player.X, player.Y) <= visrange2)
                    {

                        if (map[x, y] == 1)
                        {
                            if (x + 1 < map.GetLength(1) && map[x+1, y] == 0)
                                ScanOctant(pDepth + 1, pOctant, pStartSlope, GetSlope(x + 0.5, y - 0.5, player.X, player.Y, false));
                        }
                        else
                        {
                            if (x + 1 < map.GetLength(1)
                                    && map[x + 1, y] == 1)
                                pStartSlope = GetSlope(x + 0.5, y + 0.5, player.X, player.Y, false);

                            VisiblePoints.Add(new Point(x, y));
                        }
                    }
                    x--;
                }
                x++;
                break;

            case 6:

                y = player.Y + pDepth;
                if (y >= map.GetLength(1)) return;                  

                x = player.X - Convert.ToInt32((pStartSlope * Convert.ToDouble(pDepth)));
                if (x < 0) x = 0;

                while (GetSlope(x, y, player.X, player.Y, false) <= pEndSlope)
                {
                    if (GetVisDistance(x, y, player.X, player.Y) <= visrange2)
                    {

                        if (map[x, y] == 1)
                        {
                            if (x - 1 >= 0 && map[x - 1, y] == 0)
                                ScanOctant(pDepth + 1, pOctant, pStartSlope, GetSlope(x - 0.5, y - 0.5, player.X, player.Y, false));
                        }
                        else
                        {
                            if (x - 1 >= 0
                                    && map[x - 1, y] == 1)
                                pStartSlope = -GetSlope(x - 0.5, y + 0.5, player.X, player.Y, false);

                            VisiblePoints.Add(new Point(x, y));
                        }
                    }
                    x++;
                }
                x--;
                break;

            case 7:

                x = player.X - pDepth;
                if (x < 0) return;

                y = player.Y + Convert.ToInt32((pStartSlope * Convert.ToDouble(pDepth)));                    
                if (y >= map.GetLength(1)) y = map.GetLength(1) - 1;

                while (GetSlope(x, y, player.X, player.Y, true) <= pEndSlope)
                {

                    if (GetVisDistance(x, y, player.X, player.Y) <= visrange2)
                    {

                        if (map[x, y] == 1)
                        {
                            if (y + 1 < map.GetLength(1) && map[x, y+1] == 0)
                                ScanOctant(pDepth + 1, pOctant, pStartSlope, GetSlope(x + 0.5, y + 0.5, player.X, player.Y, true));
                        }
                        else
                        {
                            if (y + 1 < map.GetLength(1) && map[x, y + 1] == 1)
                                pStartSlope = -GetSlope(x - 0.5, y + 0.5, player.X, player.Y, true);

                            VisiblePoints.Add(new Point(x, y));
                        }
                    }
                    y--;
                }
                y++;
                break;

            case 8: //wnw

                x = player.X - pDepth;
                if (x < 0) return;

                y = player.Y - Convert.ToInt32((pStartSlope * Convert.ToDouble(pDepth)));
                if (y < 0) y = 0;

                while (GetSlope(x, y, player.X, player.Y, true) >= pEndSlope)
                {

                    if (GetVisDistance(x, y, player.X, player.Y) <= visrange2)
                    {

                        if (map[x, y] == 1)
                        {
                            if (y - 1 >=0 && map[x, y - 1] == 0)
                                ScanOctant(pDepth + 1, pOctant, pStartSlope, GetSlope(x + 0.5, y - 0.5, player.X, player.Y, true));

                        }
                        else
                        {
                            if (y - 1 >= 0 && map[x, y - 1] == 1)
                                pStartSlope = GetSlope(x - 0.5, y - 0.5, player.X, player.Y, true);

                            VisiblePoints.Add(new Point(x, y));
                        }
                    }
                    y++;
                }
                y--;
                break;
        }


        if (x < 0)
            x = 0;
        else if (x >= map.GetLength(0))
            x = map.GetLength(0) - 1;

        if (y < 0)
            y = 0;
        else if (y >= map.GetLength(1))
            y = map.GetLength(1) - 1;

        if (pDepth < VisualRange & map[x, y] == 0)
            ScanOctant(pDepth + 1, pOctant, pStartSlope, pEndSlope);

    }

    /// <summary>
    /// Get the gradient of the slope formed by the two points
    /// </summary>
    /// <param name="pX1"></param>
    /// <param name="pY1"></param>
    /// <param name="pX2"></param>
    /// <param name="pY2"></param>
    /// <param name="pInvert">Invert slope</param>
    /// <returns></returns>
    private double GetSlope(double pX1, double pY1, double pX2, double pY2, bool pInvert)
    {
        if (pInvert)
            return (pY1 - pY2) / (pX1 - pX2);
        else
            return (pX1 - pX2) / (pY1 - pY2);
    }


    /// <summary>
    /// Calculate the distance between the two points
    /// </summary>
    /// <param name="pX1"></param>
    /// <param name="pY1"></param>
    /// <param name="pX2"></param>
    /// <param name="pY2"></param>
    /// <returns>Distance</returns>
    private int GetVisDistance(int pX1, int pY1, int pX2, int pY2)
    {
        return ((pX1 - pX2) * (pX1 - pX2)) + ((pY1 - pY2) * (pY1 - pY2));
    }

    #endregion