Dashed Lines for Processing

Couldn't be any simpler, just a Processing library to draw geometry with dashed strokes!

Installation

You can install the library from Processing's Contribution Manager.

Alternatively, you can extract the distribution file on your Processing's sketchbook. Download dashedlines.zip from the dist folder. Now go to your sketchbook folder (in Windows it will be something like C:\Users\JohnDoe\Documents\Processing), go inside libraries, and extract the contents of the .zip file to a folder called dashedlines. Once finished, your library should be found under: C:\Users\JohnDoe\Documents\Processing\libraries\dashedlines\library\dashedlines.jar.

Still having trouble? Read this.

Hello Dash

Let's take a look at a basic example on how to draw a simple dashed line:

// Import the library
import garciadelcastillo.dashedlines.*;

// Declare the main DashedLines object
DashedLines dash;

void setup() {
  // Initialize it, passing a reference to the current PApplet
  dash = new DashedLines(this);

  // Set the dash-gap pattern in pixels
  dash.pattern(10, 5);
}

void draw() {
  background(127);

  // Call the line method of the 'dash' object,
  // as if it was Processing's native
  dash.line(10, 10, 90, 90);
  dash.line(10, 90, 90, 10);
}

And voilà!

Features

Dashed Lines for Processing provides a Processing-like API to draw the same basic or complex shapes you would natively, but with dashed strokes. It computes stroke segments based on your pattern choice, and adapts the drawing to a best-fit solution. This is specially useful for example for animations:

dash.pattern(20, 10);
dash.line(n1.x, n1.y, n2.x, n2.y);

Dashed Lines contains methods to draw all (under development, still kinks here and there) types of geometry that you would normally do in Processing. It inherits inherit Processing's styles, such as stroke(), fill(), strokeWeight() and shape modes like rectMode(). Additionally, it provides some options to customize the dash-gap pattern() or to add offset() to the pattern for 'walking ants' effect on animations.

For example, for 2D primitives:

dash.pattern(30, 10, 15, 10);

// Dashed objects inherit Processing's style properties, including shape modes.
fill(255, 0, 0, 100);
rectMode(CORNERS);
dash.rect(n[0].x, n[0].y, n[1].x, n[1].y);

fill(0, 255, 0, 100);
ellipseMode(CORNERS);
dash.ellipse(n[2].x, n[2].y, n[3].x, n[3].y);

fill(0, 0, 255, 100);
dash.triangle(n[4].x, n[4].y, n[5].x, n[5].y, n[6].x, n[6].y);

fill(255, 0, 255, 100);
dash.quad(n[7].x, n[7].y, n[8].x, n[8].y, n[9].x, n[9].y, n[10].x, n[10].y);

// Animate dashes with 'walking ants' effect
dash.offset(dist);
dist += 1;

For Bézier curves:

dash.pattern(30, 10);

noFill();
dash.bezier(n[0].x, n[0].y, n[1].x, n[1].y, n[2].x, n[2].y, n[3].x, n[3].y);

dash.offset(dist);
dist += 1;

And for more complex shapes, you can use the .beginShape(), .vertex() and .endShape() interface, just like you would in Processing! :)

strokeCap(SQUARE);
strokeJoin(BEVEL);
dash.pattern(30, 10);

// Start the shape with the .beginShape() method
dash.beginShape();
// Add vertices like you would in Processing
for (int i = 0; i < n.length; i++) {
  dash.vertex(n[i].x, n[i].y);
}
// Finish drawing the shape
dash.endShape();

dash.offset(dist);
dist += 1;

Including the option to use any of Processing's shape modes:

// Shapes accept all the same modes as Processing's native implementation:
fill(255, 0, 0, 100);
dash.beginShape(TRIANGLES);
for (int i = 0; i < n.length; i++) {
  dash.vertex(n[i].x, n[i].y);
}
dash.endShape(CLOSE);

Contribute

There is still a lot to do, so if you have some time and are excited about computational geometry, feel free to fork and contribute, report bugs or submit feature requests.

Also, if you found this library useful and did something cool with it, send your creation my way! I am always happy to hear about cool projects people are working on.

Acknowledgments

My deepest gratitude to all the folks at the Processing Foundation and the great community that make this project so special and awesome.

Thanks to Nono for having pushed me to stick my head out of the books and make something useful, for once!

Kuddos to Pomax for his amazing Primer on Bézier Curves, it was incredibly helpful for the math behind these curves.

If you do something cool with this, tweet me! @garciadelcast