Vector Field Histogram - Python Implementation

Author: Zhanwen (Phil) Chen

Vector Field Histogram is a robot path planning algorithm. We originally implemented this algorithm in C++ in VectorFieldHistogramTesting.

We reimplement VFH because the original C++ implementation contains a mystery bug, rendering it unusable. We suspect that the bug may be a result of wrong C++ pointers, and Python helps avoid such idiosyncracies. Another consideration is that Phil sucks at C++ but no one sucks at Python.

"What about production?" You ask. Python can be compiled into C++ code with Cython, and there are other possible hacks to jam this into ROSMOD.

TODOs

• (Fixed) BUG: Histogram grid active region is upside down. Potential cause: have been using [x][y] but should have been [y][x] (it was the plotting x.append(y))
• [] FIXME: Polar Histogram pie chart switch angle and maybe counterclockwise.