Velocity
Velocity is a quantity or state representing movement or change through a space, often encoding its direction and magnitude.
Math for Web Design
Velocity is the rate of change of an object's position together with its direction of motion.
- How it is used
- Drives JavaScript and canvas animations by converting elapsed time into directional position changes.
- How deep it goes
- Explains time-based position updates, acceleration layering, collisions, springs, friction, and component velocities through runnable animation patterns.
- Examples
- Demonstrates a sliding notification, accelerated motion, draggable inertia, balloon particles, star fields, and falling confetti.
- What you can do after
- Build it from scratch in JavaScript by updating positions from velocity and elapsed time, then modifying velocity with simulated forces.
Optimization Algorithms: AI techniques for design, planning, and control problems
A sequence of swaps that specifies how a particle's permutation is transformed in permutation-based particle swarm optimization.
- How it is used
- Represents the swaps that move a particle between candidate routes in permutation-based particle swarm optimization.
- How deep it goes
- Defines velocity through swaps and explains redefined multiplication, subtraction, and addition with route illustrations.
- Examples
- Uses an eight-city traveling salesman route and figures showing velocity scaling, position subtraction, and swap application.
- What you can do after
- Apply it via swap operations to transform a route permutation into another candidate solution.
Grokking AI Algorithms, Second Edition
A velocity is a particle's vector describing the direction and magnitude of its movement through the search space.
- How it is used
- Guides particle movement during particle swarm optimization’s repeated search for better solutions.
- How deep it goes
- Explains velocity through inertia, cognitive, and social components, then traces its use in position updates and Python code.
- Examples
- Uses random starting kicks, particle tables, fireflies, plotted movement, and a worked transition from velocity 1.52 to position (0.52, 10.52).
- What you can do after
- Apply via Python by calculating component influences, combining them into velocity, and updating each particle’s position.
Read how Grokking AI Algorithms, Second Edition explains velocity →
Classic Game Programming on the NES: Make your own retro video game
Velocity is a signed positional change applied along a spatial axis to determine an object's movement.
- How it is used
- Moves a bouncing NES ball by applying separate horizontal and vertical values to its sprite coordinates.
- How deep it goes
- Explains initialization, per-loop position updates, and edge-triggered direction changes in assembly.
- Examples
- Uses a ball sprite initialized with unit X and Y velocities and reversed at the visible screen edges.
- What you can do after
- Build it from scratch by storing velocity values, adding them to sprite coordinates, and reversing them at boundaries.
Read how Classic Game Programming on the NES: Make your own retro video game explains velocity →
Related concepts
- particle swarm optimizationused by · Particle swarm optimization is a population-based optimization method in which candidate solutions adjust their positions using individual and collective search information.
- gravityconfigured by · Gravity is the attractive interaction between masses that accelerates objects toward one another.
- accelerationproduced by · Acceleration is the rate at which an object's velocity changes over time.
- velocity clampingconfigured by · Velocity clamping is a particle-swarm constraint that limits each particle’s velocity to a specified minimum and maximum.
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