Random placement of cylinders with random orientations

Question

I need to write a script that randomly distributes spheres (around 300) in a specific space and after the placement of the spheres I need to randomly distribute cylinders(5 times the number of spheres) with random orientation. All the spheres and cylinders should not overlap. After the spheres and cylinders I need to fill a percentage of the remaining space with ellipsoids. I managed to distribute the spheres without overlapping by generating random locations, but I still have problems with the cylinders mostly because of the random orientation. My question is if there is any way for Blender to return the volume coordinates of an object when it is created, so that I can check for overlaps or if you possibly know any other methods to avoid overlapping.

Answer 1

I have this script,

...    
# Function to calculate the distance between two points
def distance(a, b) :
    '''
    list , list --> float
    a = list with three element
    b = list with three element

    return the distance between two points in float
    '''
    return sqrt((a[0]-b[0])**2+(a[1]-b[1])**2+(a[2]-b[2])**2)

# How many Sphere you want to add
count = 50

# Cylinder properties
radius = 0.03
depth = 0.2

# The sphere will be created between -domain <--> domain
domain = 0.5

# Max time to try finding a new location before break the loop
maxTry = 50

# Variable to count how many try has been done
Try = 0

# list with three element to generate locations
location = [0, 0, 0]

# Variable to hold the distant between balls
dist = 0

# True == Won't collide , False == Will collide
State = True

# This tuple will hold centers of created spheres
locList = ()

while count > 0 :

    # Calculate x, y, z position
    location[0] = randint(-domain*10, domain*10)/10.0
    location[1] = randint(-domain*10, domain*10)/10.0
    location[2] = randint(-domain*10, domain*10)/10.0

    # Start check if it will collide with other spheres
    for x in locList :
        # Calculate the distant
        dist = distance(x, location)

        # If it's too close make State = False
        if dist < radius*2 + 0.1 :
            State = False
            break
        # If it's in a good position State = True
        else :
            State = True

    # The distant is too close , recalculate the location
    if State == False :
        Try += 1
        continue

    # After Try reach maxTry break the loop
    if Try > maxTry :
        break

    # Successfully found a New location
    # Add this point
    locList += (location[:],)

    # Smooth the faces
    bpy.ops.object.shade_smooth()

    #Create a new sphere at the same location, and resize it to an cylinder
    bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_cylinder_add(radius = 0.1, location = location)

    #Give the cylinder a random orientation
    bpy.ops.transform.rotate(value=(2*pi*random()-1), axis=((2*pi*random()-1), (2*pi*random()-1), (2*pi*random()-1)))

    #Smooth the faces
    bpy.ops.object.shade_smooth()

    # reset Try
    Try = 0

    # Decrease the counter
    count -= 1     

The problem of this script is in the condition of overlap between two cylinder, someone can solve this problem of overlap?