How to control the interpolation of an ellipse?

How does processing determine how many segments an ellipse or stroke is made of? Is there a way to increase or decrease the amount of sides an ellipse has?

Answers

  • In 3D this would be sphereDetail for a sphere...

  • iirc, the ellipse method chooses this for you, based on the size of the ellipse (more segments for bigger ellipses)

    see the accuracy variable here:

    https://github.com/processing/processing/blob/f434d2c2303c8d03e265e14972b652c595e6cdf7/core/src/processing/opengl/PGraphicsOpenGL.java#L8756

  • edited April 2018

    So, if I were to use scale(); I'd be able to see the individual lines?

  • try it. it's 10 lines of code.

  • 3 lines. and apparently no.

    size(1000, 1000);
    scale(100);
    ellipse(5, 5, 4, 4);
    
  • edited April 2018

    If you make an ellipse yourself with beginShape, endShape and a for-loop, you can define the number of sides.

    size(200, 200);
    int sides = 10;
    float cx = width * 0.5;
    float cy = height * 0.5;
    float w = width * 0.5;
    float h = height * 0.25;
    beginShape(POLYGON);
    for(int i = 0; i < sides; ++i) {
      float theta = TWO_PI * i / float(sides);
      vertex(cx + w * cos(theta), cy + h * sin(theta));
    }
    endShape(CLOSE);
    

    For line segments

    size(200, 200);
    strokeWeight(2);
    int detail = 3;
    float startx = width * 0.25;
    float starty = height * 0.25;
    float stopx = width * 0.75;
    float stopy = height * 0.75;
    float prevx, prevy, currx = startx, curry = starty;
    for(int i = 0; i < detail + 1; ++i) {
      prevx = currx;
      prevy = curry;
      float step = i / float(detail);
      currx = lerp(startx, stopx, step);
      curry = lerp(starty, stopy, step);
      stroke(lerpColor(0xffff0000, 0xff0000ff, (i - 1) / float(detail - 1), HSB));
      line(prevx, prevy, currx, curry);
    }
    

    I don't know about your first question, but I'm guessing it depends on the underlying renderer that Processing uses; the default is based on the AWT library. See the source code for more.

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