Draw text within a circle

Programming Questions

plodsmeade

in Programming Questions • 5 months ago

Hi all

I'm trying to achieve three things:

1. To draw with random rotation single characters from a text file inside the area of a circle, until they are all used once.

2. To draw the contents of the text file, in order, within columns which fit inside the same circle area, so they are readable.

3. To draw the contents of the text file, in order, as a spiral within the same circle area, so it's readable.

All of these are to be output to separate Pdfs.

I've managed most of the first part in the attached code, adapting an example by kobby, but I'm unable to work out the rotation with this method.

Hopefully when this is done I can adapt it to achieve the other parts.

I'm guessing I have to get everything inside draw(), but I don't know how to do this and stop it when it reaches the last character.

best

PFont f = createFont( "Courier", 10, true);
float a = 200;
float b = 200;
float r;
float x;
float y;
float t;
void setup() {
size(400, 400);
textFont(f);
background(50,0,255);
String lines[] = loadStrings("list.txt");
println("there are " + lines.length + " lines");
for (int e = 0; e < lines.length; e++) {
String[] words = split(lines[e], ' ');
for(int i = 0; i< words.length; i++){
for(int j = 0; j<words[i].length(); j++){
char letter = words[i].charAt(j);
println(letter);
t = random(2*PI);
r = random(100);
x = a + r*(cos(t));
y = b + r*(sin(t));
text(letter, x, y);
}
}
}
}
void draw() {
}

Replies(5)

not_55

Re: Draw text within a circle

5 months ago

This might be of some use:

http://wiki.processing.org/w/Text_on_a_circle

plodsmeade

Re: Draw text within a circle

5 months ago

Hi not_55

I can see how it might, thanks for the link.

Though I cannot see how to get my text file via loadStrings() into arcText, to simply display all the text at once and then stop. I seem to run up against an incompatibility between String[] and String.

Once that's done I can think about how to change the radius to make a spiral.

Also, that sketch seems to have trouble placing the "I"s correctly.

Any ideas much appreciated.

allonestr..

Re: Draw text within a circle

5 months ago

I haven't looked at your code but, when I've tried to place the letters in text individually, I've had to shift the i and l (ell) across a little. Also, in some fonts, the n and m need a little adjustment too.

not_55

Re: Draw text within a circle

5 months ago

plodsmeade:

You want to display all the lines from your text file at once (i.e. as one long string instead of "arctext" in the example?

If so, you could step through the array containing the strings you loaded with loadStrings and concatenate them like so

in a loop...{
myString = myString + loadedStrings[nLoop] + " ";
}

If you want to display them one at a time you'd just work through the array in the same way and display each one in turn, in the example..

in a loop {
arcText ( loadedStrings[nLoop] , ...
}

Hope that helps

plodsmeade

Re: Draw text within a circle

5 months ago

Here is my solution to the first aim for anyone who's interested.

Thanks not_55.

/*
draws randomly rotated single characters from a text file within the area of a circle
and outputs a PDF
developed from
https://forum.processing.org/topic/how-to-load-a-single-character-at-a-time-from-words-in-a-txt-file
@author kobby
https://forum.processing.org/topic/draw-text-within-a-circle
@author plodsmeade, not_55
http://wiki.processing.org/index.php/Text_on_a_circle
@author mflux
*/
import processing.pdf.*;
String[] textData; // declare array globally
float x;
float y;
float t;
float r;
int grey = 0;
float pointSize = 8;
PFont f;
void setup(){
size(864, 864, PDF, "Test 1.pdf");
f = createFont("Courier", pointSize, true);
textData = loadStrings("text.txt"); // populate array
println("there are " + textData.length + " lines");
noLoop();
}
void draw(){
background(255);
textFont(f, pointSize);
fill(grey, grey, grey);
translate(width/2, height/2); // move grid so centre is (0,0)
for(int i = 0; i< textData.length; i++){
for(int j = 0; j<textData[i].length(); j++){
char letter = textData[i].charAt(j); // split lines into individual characters
println(letter);
t = random(2*PI); // generate random parametric variable t
rotate(t); // also use t to rotate the letter
r = random(width/2); // set radius bounds
x = r*(cos(t)); // equation of a circle at (0,0)
y = r*(sin(t));
text(letter, x, y);
}
}
println("Finished.");
exit();
}

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