How can I plot random circles that don't overlap

I am trying to plot random circles until the critera: (area of all circles)/(area of domain) <= 0.4095 is fulfilled. I am struggling to figure out how to make the code plot only if the circles do not overlap.

I have three matrices of type double formatted like:

x = (250, 1); -- A randomized matrix of x-coordinates

y = (250,1); -- A randomized matrix of y-coordinates

r = (3,1); -- only three circle sizes to be plotted.

If possible, I'd like to run the code within a while loop which is calculating the (area of all circles)/(area of domain) criteria.

Plotting the first circle is easy, but I'd like to check this criteria against every circle so that they don't plot as overlapping. Does anyone have any suggestions?

Thank you.

[Walter Roberson]

Search for "circle packing" in the search box here. Several people have posted functions, including some functions that can deal with discrete sets of radius if I recall correctly.

[Sindar]

First, you probably want (area of all circles)/(area of domain) greater/= 0.4095

Questions:

• How different are the three radii?
• Are you placing circles from the set of 250 one by one?
• What happens if you get to the end of the set and don't fulfill the condition?

Hints

• check out vecnorm and the examples from norm
• check beforehand whether the total area of the 250 circles is sufficient

Now, could you code up everything you do understand, then we'll help with the last bits?

[Charles Dorchester]

Thanks for the response Walter, I haven't had an opportunity to return to this project but that's super helpful to know there is already a host of responses to this. I will check it out ASAP.

Answer 1

[Stephan]

This might be useful:

https://de.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/484453-matrix-indexing-in-a-function