How to use abs() on a Vector2

nalgebra
1

Dear Sir,

Since a few days I’m trying to incorporate nalgebra in my application. But I am unable to figure out how to get the magnitude(modulus) of a vector in a scalar format.

My code:
let vector = Vector2::new(0.,0.); let modulus = abs(vector);

The error I’m getting is :
the trait bound 'nalgebra::Matrix<f64, nalgebra::U2, nalgebra::U1, nalgebra::MatrixArray<f64, nalgebra::U2, nalgebra::U1>>: num_traits::sign::Signed' is not satisfied.

Am I missing a step when creating the vector?

Sincerely,
Wooter

2

Hi !

To compute the magnitude of a vector, you can une the method vector.norm() (this is its euclidean norm).

Note that num::abs computes the absolute value of its argument and cannot be used with types from nalgebra. Instead, the vector.abs()method should be used for componentwise absolute values.

3

Thank you for your response, I did not know about the L2 norm also being called the absolute of a vector.

Am I correct that if I want a unit vector from a vector, I can use the normalize() method?

Thanks again.
Wooter

4

Yes, you can either use .normalize() if you are sure the norm is not zero, or .try_normalize(threshold) which returns None if the norm is too small (i.e. smaller than the provided threshold argument).

Also the method .normalize_mut() will perform the normalization in-place.