NAME poisson - random 2d poisson point generator SYNOPSIS poisson [options] DESCRIPTION poisson generates random points on a 2d plane with a Poisson law distribution. The idea is to generate random points with an homogeneous distribution within the rectangle. The algorithm is simple: points are generated randomly within the given limits, points are rejected if they are too close to any previously generated point. Once the requested number of points has been generated, output the point coordinates to stdout. The minimum distance between points is computed by the fol- lowing formula: If the requested rectangle has a width of L and a height of h, and n points are requested, we have: dmin = sqrt(L*h / 2*n) The defaults are the following : rectangle is located between -75 and +75 in x and y, points are generated with integer coordinate values, and 20 points will be generated. OPTIONS -r xmin xmax ymin ymax Defines the rectangle in which points will be gen- erated. Ranges may be given as integer or floating- point values. -f Generate floating-point valued coordinates (default is integer). -n Change the number of points to generate. Default is 20. -h hom Used to specify an homogeneity factor BUGS This is the simplest possible implementation of a Poisson generator. As a result, trying to generate a high number of points (>500) will require a very intensive random point generation before having all the requested points. Another approach would be to generate random points only within an allowed surface, but this is far from trivial.