Geometry tools

Lines and distances

You can find the midpoint between two points using midpoint().

The following code places a small pentagon (using ngon()) at the midpoint of each side of a larger pentagon:

sethue("red")
ngon(O, 100, 5, 0, :stroke)

sethue("darkgreen")
p5 = ngon(O, 100, 5, 0, vertices=true)

for i in eachindex(p5)
    pt1 = p5[mod1(i, 5)]
    pt2 = p5[mod1(i + 1, 5)]
    ngon(midpoint(pt1, pt2), 20, 5, 0, :fill)
end

A more general function, between(), finds for a value x between 0 and 1 the corresponding point on a line defined by two points. So midpoint(p1, p2) and between(p1, p2, 0.5) should return the same point.

sethue("red")
p1 = Point(-150, 0)
p2 = Point(150, 40)
line(p1, p2)
strokepath()
for i in -0.5:0.1:1.5
    randomhue()
    circle(between(p1, p2, i), 5, :fill)
end

Values less than 0.0 and greater than 1.0 appear to work well too, placing the point on the line if extended.

midpoint(p1, p2)

midpoint(a)

midpoint(bb::BoundingBox)

between(p1::Point, p2::Point, x)
between((p1::Point, p2::Point), x)

between(bb::BoundingBox, x)

center3pts() finds the radius and center point of a circle passing through three points which you can then use with functions such as circle() or arc2r().

getnearestpointonline() finds perpendiculars.

end1, end2, pt3 = ngon(O, 100, 3, vertices=true)
circle.([end1, end2, pt3], 5, :fill)
line(end1, end2, :stroke)
arrow(pt3, getnearestpointonline(end1, end2, pt3))

Points and arcs

Use isarcclockwise(c, p1, p2) to check whether an arc centered at c running from p1 to p2 is clockwise.

The pointinverse() function finds the inverse of a point relative to a reference circle (centerpoint and radius). In the image, each vertex on the star is linked by an arrow to its inverse.

radius = 80
starradius = 70
sethue("black")
points = star(O, starradius, 5, 0.5, π/5, vertices=true)
antipoints = last.(pointinverse.(points, O, radius))

@layer (sethue("grey90"); poly(antipoints, :fill))
@layer (sethue("grey75"); poly(points, :fill))
circle(O, radius, :stroke)

prettypoly.((points, antipoints), :none,
    vertexlabels = (n, l) -> (label(string(n), :ne)))
foreach(x -> arrow(x[1] , x[2]), zip(points, antipoints))

distance(p1::Point, p2::Point)

getnearestpointonline(pt1::Point, pt2::Point, startpt::Point)

pointlinedistance(p::Point, a::Point, b::Point)

slope(pointA::Point, pointB::Point)

slope(O, Point(0, 100)) |> rad2deg # y is positive down the page
90.0

slope(Point(0, 100), O) |> rad2deg
270.0

perpendicular(p1, p2, k)

perpendicular(p::Point)

dotproduct(a::Point, b::Point)

@polar (p)

@polar (10, pi/4)
@polar [10, pi/4]

Luxor.Point(7.0710678118654755, 7.071067811865475)

polar(r, theta)

polar(10, pi/4)

Luxor.Point(7.071067811865475, 7.0710678118654755)

ispointonline(pt::Point, pt1::Point, pt2::Point;
    extended = false,
    atol = 10E-5)

isarcclockwise(c::Point, A::Point, B::Point)

pointinverse(A::Point, centerpoint::Point, rad)

distance(centerpoint, A) * distance(centerpoint, A′) == rad^2

Intersections

intersectionlines() finds the intersection of two lines.

sethue("black")
P1, P2, P3, P4 = ngon(O, 100, 5, vertices=true)
label.(["P1", "P2", "P3", "P4"], :N, [P1, P2, P3, P4])
line(P1, P2, :stroke)
line(P4, P3, :stroke)

flag, ip =  intersectionlines(P1, P2, P4, P3)
if flag
    circle(ip, 5, :fill)
end

intersectionlinecircle() finds the intersection of a line and a circle. There can be 0, 1, or 2 intersection points.

l1 = Point(-100.0, -75.0)
l2 = Point(300.0, 100.0)
rad = 100
cpoint = Point(0, 0)
line(l1, l2, :stroke)
circle(cpoint, rad, :stroke)
nints, ip1, ip2 =  intersectionlinecircle(l1, l2, cpoint, rad)
sethue("black")
if nints == 2
    circle(ip1, 8, :stroke)
    circle(ip2, 8, :stroke)
end

intersection2circles() finds the area of the intersection of two circles, and intersectioncirclecircle() finds the points where they cross.

This example shows the areas of two circles, and the area of their intersection.

c1 = (O, 150)
c2 = (O + (100, 0), 150)

circle(c1... , :stroke)
circle(c2... , :stroke)

sethue("purple")
circle(c1... , :clip)
circle(c2... , :fill)
clipreset()

sethue("black")

text(string(150^2 * π |> round), c1[1] - (125, 0))
text(string(150^2 * π |> round), c2[1] + (100, 0))
sethue("white")
text(string(intersection2circles(c1..., c2...) |> round),
     midpoint(c1[1], c2[1]), halign=:center)

sethue("red")
flag, C, D = intersectioncirclecircle(c1..., c2...)
if flag
    circle.([C, D], 5, :fill)
end

intersectionlines(p0, p1, p2, p3,
    crossingonly=false)

intersectionlinecircle(p1::Point, p2::Point, cpoint::Point, r)

intersection2circles(pt1, r1, pt2, r2)

intersectioncirclecircle(cp1, r1, cp2, r2)

(flag, ip1, ip2)

Bounding boxes

The BoundingBox type allows you to use rectangular extents to organize and interact with the 2D drawing area. A BoundingBox holds two points, the opposite corners of a bounding box.

You can make a BoundingBox from the current drawing, two points, a text string, an existing polygon, or by modifying an existing one.

BoundingBox() without arguments defines an extent that encloses the drawing (assuming that the origin is at the center of the drawing—see origin()). Use centered=false if the drawing origin is still at the top left corner.

This example draws circles at three points: at two of the drawing's corners and the midway point between them:

origin()

bb = BoundingBox()
setline(10)
sethue("orange")

circle(bb[1], 150, :stroke) # first corner

circle(bb[2], 150, :stroke) # second corner

circle(midpoint(bb...), 150, :stroke) # midpoint

sethue("blue")
circle.([bb[1], midpoint(bb[1:2]), bb[2]], 130, :fill)

sethue("red")
circle.([first(bb), midpoint(bb...), last(bb)], 100, :fill)

You can make a bounding box from a polygon:

p = star(O, 100, 5, 0.1, π/3.3, vertices=true)
sethue("antiquewhite")
box(BoundingBox(p), :fill)

sethue("black")
poly(p, :stroke, close=true)

The resulting bounding box objects can be passed to box() or poly() to be drawn.

Pass a bounding box to midpoint() to find its center point. The functions boxbottom(), boxheight(), boxtop(), boxaspectratio(), boxdiagonal(), and boxwidth() return information about a bounding box.

To convert a bounding box b into a box, use box(b, vertices=true) or convert(Vector{Point}, BoundingBox()).

You can also do some arithmetic on bounding boxes. In the next example, the bounding box is created from the text "good afternoon". The bounding box is filled with purple, then increased by 40 units on all sides (blue), also scaled by 1.3 (green), and also shifted by (0, 100) (orange).

translate(-130,0)
fontsize(40)
str = "good afternoon"
sethue("purple")
box(BoundingBox(str), :fill)
sethue("white")
text(str)

sethue("blue")
modbox = BoundingBox(str) + 40 # add 40 units to all sides
poly(modbox, :stroke, close=true)

sethue("green")
modbox = BoundingBox(str) * 1.3
poly(modbox, :stroke, close=true)

sethue("orange")
modbox = BoundingBox(str) + (0, 100)
poly(modbox, :fill, close=true)

You can find the union and intersection of BoundingBoxes, and also find whether a point lies inside one. The following code creates, shrinks, and shifts two bounding boxes (colored yellow and pink), and then draws: their union (a bounding box that includes both), in black outline; and their intersection (a bounding box of their common areas), in red. Then some random points are created (you can pass a bounding box to rand() to get a random point inside the box) and drawn differently depending on whether they're inside the intersection or outside.

origin()
setopacity(0.75)
setline(8)

bbox1 = BoundingBox()/2 - (50, 30)
sethue("yellow")
box(bbox1, :fill)

bbox2 = BoundingBox()/2  + (50, 30)
sethue("pink")
box(bbox2, :fill)

sethue("black")
box(bbox1 + bbox2, :stroke)

sethue("red")
bothboxes = intersectboundingboxes(bbox1, bbox2)
box(bothboxes, :fill)

for i in 1:500
    pt = rand(bbox1 + bbox2)
    if isinside(pt, bothboxes)
        sethue("white")
        circle(pt, 3, :fill)
    else
        sethue("black")
        circle(pt, 2, :fill)
    end
end

To find out where a line starting at the center of a bounding box passing through a point crosses or would cross the edges of the box, use pointcrossesboundingbox().

bx = BoundingBox(box(O, 200, 200, :none))
setline(1)
box(bx, :stroke)
for i in 1:10
    pt = randompoint((1.5bx)...)
    pt2 = pointcrossesboundingbox(pt, bx)

    sethue("grey50")
    arrow(O, pt)
    sethue("red")
    circle(pt2, 3, :stroke)
end

boxaspectratio(bb::BoundingBox)

boxdiagonal(bb::BoundingBox)

boxwidth(bb::BoundingBox)

boxheight(bb::BoundingBox)

intersectboundingboxes(bb1::BoundingBox, bb2::BoundingBox)

pointcrossesboundingbox(pt, bbox::BoundingBox)

boxbottomleft(bb::BoundingBox)

⋅ ⋅ ⋅
⋅ ⋅ ⋅
■ ⋅ ⋅

boxbottomright(bb::BoundingBox)

⋅ ⋅ ⋅
⋅ ⋅ ⋅
⋅ ⋅ ■

boxmiddlecenter(bb::BoundingBox)

⋅ ⋅ ⋅
⋅ ■ ⋅
⋅ ⋅ ⋅

boxmiddleleft(bb::BoundingBox)

⋅ ⋅ ⋅
■ ⋅ ⋅
⋅ ⋅ ⋅

boxmiddleright(bb::BoundingBox)

⋅ ⋅ ⋅
⋅ ⋅ ■
⋅ ⋅ ⋅

boxtopcenter(bb::BoundingBox)

⋅ ■ ⋅
⋅ ⋅ ⋅
⋅ ⋅ ⋅

boxtopleft(bb::BoundingBox)

■ ⋅ ⋅
⋅ ⋅ ⋅
⋅ ⋅ ⋅

boxtopright(bb::BoundingBox)

⋅ ⋅ ■
⋅ ⋅ ⋅
⋅ ⋅ ⋅

Noise

For artistic graphics you might prefer noisy input values to purely random ones. Use the noise() function to obtain smoothly changing random values corresponding to input coordinates. The returned values wander slowly rather than jump about everywhere.

In this example, the gray value varies gradually as the noise() function returns values between 0 and 1 depending on the location of the two input values pos.x and pos.y.

The top two quadrants use a lower value for the detail keyword argument, an integer ()>= 1) specifying how many "octaves" of noise you want.

The left two quadrants use a lower value for the persistence keyword argument, a floating point number specifying how the amplitude diminishes for each successive level of detail. There is more fine detail when the persistence is higher, particularly when the detail setting is also high.

tiles = Tiler(800, 400, 200, 200)
sethue("black")
for (pos, n) in tiles
    freq = 0.05
    pos.y < 0 ? d = 1      : d = 4
    pos.x < 0 ? pers = 0.3 : pers = 1.0
    ns = noise(freq * pos.x, freq * pos.y,
        detail=d,
        persistence=pers)
    setgray(ns)
    box(pos, tiles.tilewidth, tiles.tileheight, :fillstroke)
end

noise(x)          ; detail = 1, persistence = 1.0) # 1D
noise(x, y)       ; detail = 1, persistence = 1.0) # 2D
noise(x, y, z)    ; detail = 1, persistence = 1.0) # 3D
noise(x, y, z, w) ; detail = 1, persistence = 1.0) # 4D

initnoise(seed::Int)
initnoise()

julia> initnoise(); noise(1)
0.7453148982810598

julia> initnoise(); noise(1)
0.7027617067916981

julia> initnoise(41); noise(1) # yesterday
0.7134000046640385

julia> initnoise(41); noise(1) # today
0.7134000046640385