如何在半径为R的圆内随机生成一个点:

r = R * sqrt(random())
theta = random() * 2 * PI

(假设random()均匀地给出0到1之间的值)

如果你想把它转换成笛卡尔坐标，你可以做到

x = centerX + r * cos(theta)
y = centerY + r * sin(theta)

为什么sqrt(随机())?

让我们看看sqrt(random())之前的数学运算。为简单起见，假设我们是在单位圆上工作，即R = 1。

点与点之间的平均距离应该是相同的，不管我们看的距离中心有多远。这意味着，例如，观察一个周长为2的圆的周长，我们应该找到的点的数量是周长为1的圆周长上点的数量的两倍。

由于圆的周长(2πr)随r线性增长，因此随机点的数量应该随r线性增长。换句话说，期望的概率密度函数(PDF)线性增长。由于PDF的面积应该等于1，最大半径是1，我们有

所以我们知道随机值的理想密度应该是什么样的。 现在:当我们只有一个0到1之间的均匀随机值时，我们如何生成这样一个随机值?

我们用了一个叫做反变换采样的技巧

从PDF中创建累积分布函数(CDF) 沿着y = x镜像 将得到的函数应用于0到1之间的统一值。

听起来复杂吗?让我插入一段带有小侧轨的引语来传达直觉:

Suppose we want to generate a random point with the following distribution:                  That is 1/5 of the points uniformly between 1 and 2, and 4/5 of the points uniformly between 2 and 3. The CDF is, as the name suggests, the cumulative version of the PDF. Intuitively: While PDF(x) describes the number of random values at x, CDF(x) describes the number of random values less than x. In this case the CDF would look like:                  To see how this is useful, imagine that we shoot bullets from left to right at uniformly distributed heights. As the bullets hit the line, they drop down to the ground:                  See how the density of the bullets on the ground correspond to our desired distribution! We're almost there! The problem is that for this function, the y axis is the output and the x axis is the input. We can only "shoot bullets from the ground straight up"! We need the inverse function! This is why we mirror the whole thing; x becomes y and y becomes x:                  We call this CDF-1. To get values according to the desired distribution, we use CDF-1(random()).

所以，回到生成随机半径值，其中PDF等于2x。

步骤1:创建CDF: 由于我们处理的是实数，CDF表示为PDF的积分。

CDF（x） = ∫ 2x = x2

步骤2:沿y = x镜像CDF:

从数学上讲，这可以归结为交换x和y并求解y:

CDF: y = x2 交换:x = y2 解:y =√x CDF-1: y =√x

步骤3:将得到的函数应用于0到1之间的统一值

CDF-1(random()) =√random()

这就是我们要推导的:-)

首先我们生成一个cdf[x]

一点到圆心的距离小于x的概率。假设圆的半径为R。

显然，如果x = 0，那么cdf[0] = 0

显然，如果x是R，则cdf[R] = 1

显然，如果x = r，则cdf[r] = (r^2)/(r^2)

这是因为圆上的每个“小区域”都有相同的被选中的概率，所以概率与问题区域成比例。距离圆心x的面积是r^2

所以cdf[x] = x^2/R^2因为两者相互抵消了

我们有cdf[x]=x^2/R^2其中x从0到R

我们解出x

R^2 cdf[x] = x^2

x = R Sqrt[ cdf[x] ]

现在我们可以用一个从0到1的随机数来替换cdf

x = R Sqrt[ RandomReal[{0,1}] ]

最后

r = R Sqrt[  RandomReal[{0,1}] ];
theta = 360 deg * RandomReal[{0,1}];
{r,theta}

我们得到极坐标 {0.601168 R, 311.915°}

程序员解决方案:

创建一个位图(布尔值的矩阵)。你想要多大就有多大。 在位图中画一个圆。 创建一个圆的点查找表。 在这个查找表中选择一个随机索引。

const int RADIUS = 64;
const int MATRIX_SIZE = RADIUS * 2;

bool matrix[MATRIX_SIZE][MATRIX_SIZE] = {0};

struct Point { int x; int y; };

Point lookupTable[MATRIX_SIZE * MATRIX_SIZE];

void init()
{
  int numberOfOnBits = 0;

  for (int x = 0 ; x < MATRIX_SIZE ; ++x)
  {
    for (int y = 0 ; y < MATRIX_SIZE ; ++y)
    {
      if (x * x + y * y < RADIUS * RADIUS) 
      {
        matrix[x][y] = true;

        loopUpTable[numberOfOnBits].x = x;
        loopUpTable[numberOfOnBits].y = y;

        ++numberOfOnBits;

      } // if
    } // for
  } // for
} // ()

Point choose()
{
  int randomIndex = randomInt(numberOfBits);

  return loopUpTable[randomIndex];
} // ()

位图仅用于解释逻辑。这是没有位图的代码:

const int RADIUS = 64;
const int MATRIX_SIZE = RADIUS * 2;

struct Point { int x; int y; };

Point lookupTable[MATRIX_SIZE * MATRIX_SIZE];

void init()
{
  int numberOfOnBits = 0;

  for (int x = 0 ; x < MATRIX_SIZE ; ++x)
  {
    for (int y = 0 ; y < MATRIX_SIZE ; ++y)
    {
      if (x * x + y * y < RADIUS * RADIUS) 
      {
        loopUpTable[numberOfOnBits].x = x;
        loopUpTable[numberOfOnBits].y = y;

        ++numberOfOnBits;
      } // if
    } // for
  } // for
} // ()

Point choose()
{
  int randomIndex = randomInt(numberOfBits);

  return loopUpTable[randomIndex];
} // ()

这可能会帮助那些对选择速度算法感兴趣的人;最快的方法是(可能?)拒绝抽样。

只需在单位正方形内生成一个点，并拒绝它，直到它在圆内。如(伪代码),

def sample(r=1):
    while True:
        x = random(-1, 1)
        y = random(-1, 1)
        if x*x + y*y <= 1:
            return (x, y) * r

虽然有时它可能运行不止一次或两次(而且它不是常量时间，也不适合并行执行)，但它要快得多，因为它不使用像sin或cos这样复杂的公式。

这取决于你对"均匀随机"的定义。这是一个微妙的点，你可以在这里的wiki页面上阅读更多关于它的内容:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bertrand_paradox_%28probability%29，在这里同样的问题，对“均匀随机”给出不同的解释会给出不同的答案!

根据你如何选择这些点，分布可能会有所不同，即使它们在某种意义上是均匀随机的。

It seems like the blog entry is trying to make it uniformly random in the following sense: If you take a sub-circle of the circle, with the same center, then the probability that the point falls in that region is proportional to the area of the region. That, I believe, is attempting to follow the now standard interpretation of 'uniformly random' for 2D regions with areas defined on them: probability of a point falling in any region (with area well defined) is proportional to the area of that region.

朴素解不起作用的原因是它给了靠近圆中心的点更高的概率密度。换句话说，半径为r/2的圆被选中点的概率为r/2，但它的面积(点的数量)为*r^2/4。

因此，我们希望半径概率密度具有以下性质:

选择半径小于或等于给定r的概率必须与半径为r的圆的面积成正比(因为我们希望在点上有一个均匀的分布，面积越大意味着点越多)。

换句话说，我们希望在[0,r]之间选择半径的概率等于它在圆的总面积中所占的份额。圆的总面积是*R^2，半径为R的圆的面积是*R^2。因此，我们希望在[0,r]之间选择半径的概率为(pi*r^2)/(pi* r^2) = r^2/ r^2。

现在来算算:

The probability of choosing a radius between [0,r] is the integral of p(r) dr from 0 to r (that's just because we add all the probabilities of the smaller radii). Thus we want integral(p(r)dr) = r^2/R^2. We can clearly see that R^2 is a constant, so all we need to do is figure out which p(r), when integrated would give us something like r^2. The answer is clearly r * constant. integral(r * constant dr) = r^2/2 * constant. This has to be equal to r^2/R^2, therefore constant = 2/R^2. Thus you have the probability distribution p(r) = r * 2/R^2

Note: Another more intuitive way to think about the problem is to imagine that you are trying to give each circle of radius r a probability density equal to the proportion of the number of points it has on its circumference. Thus a circle which has radius r will have 2 * pi * r "points" on its circumference. The total number of points is pi * R^2. Thus you should give the circle r a probability equal to (2 * pi * r) / (pi * R^2) = 2 * r/R^2. This is much easier to understand and more intuitive, but it's not quite as mathematically sound.