It's also possible to write microprocessor assembly language in any other language. The following code generates the OP's list of points with nothing more complicated than integer addition/subtraction inside the loop. It also does the right thing if the radius is not an integer, and avoids the OP's "0.71 approx == sin(45 deg) aka 1/sqrt(2)" caper.
Wrt your Pythonic suggestion: "I'll bet this does the trick for you and runs faster than what you've got": You lose on "does the trick" (should be <= radsq). As for the second clause, a prerequisite to testing that is to get the OP to say what his typical radius and typical enclosing box size are (and get your point that they should not be the same). Cheers, John # def octant(radius): # assert radius >= 0 # filllist = [] # dx = int(radius) # dy = 0 # trigger = dx * dx - int(radius * radius) # dx_squared_delta = dx + dx - 1 # dy_squared_delta = 1 # while dy <= dx: # if trigger <= 0: # for x in range(dy, dx+1): # filllist.append((x, dy)) # dy += 1 # trigger += dy_squared_delta # dy_squared_delta += 2 # else: # dx -= 1 # trigger -= dx_squared_delta # dx_squared_delta -= 2 # filllist.sort() # print "%.2f %r" % (radius, filllist) # if __name__ == "__main__": # octant(3.99) # octant(4) # octant(4.01) # octant(3.60) # octant(3.61) # octant(0.01) # octant(0) -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
