Page 1 of 1

Draw Line

Posted: September 12th, 2017, 5:00 pm
by Walka
In Chili's tutorial series years ago he taught us how to make a draw line function early on. I quit programming for quite and awhile and so I am going back through he new series again to brush up on my skills. I noticed that in this new series he does not show a draw line function. I've only made it to lesson 20 of the beginner series this may be something that he does indeed show later but I have yet to see it. I have found an excellent draw line function that works flawlessly(so far) and I just wanted to share it with the group.

Code: Select all

void Graphics::DrawLine(float x1, float y1, float x2, float y2, Color & color)
{
	const bool steep = (fabs(y2 - y1) > fabs(x2 - x1));
	if (steep)
	{
		std::swap(x1, y1);
		std::swap(x2, y2);
	}

	if (x1 > x2)
	{
		std::swap(x1, x2);
		std::swap(y1, y2);
	}

	const float dx = x2 - x1;
	const float dy = fabs(y2 - y1);

	float error = dx / 2.0f;
	const int ystep = (y1 < y2) ? 1 : -1;
	int y = (int)y1;

	const int maxX = (int)x2;

	for (int x = (int)x1; x<maxX; x++)
	{
		if (steep)
		{
			PutPixel(y, x, color);
		}
		else
		{
			PutPixel(x, y, color);
		}

		error -= dy;
		if (error < 0)
		{
			y += ystep;
			error += dx;
		}
	}
}

Re: Draw Line

Posted: September 13th, 2017, 1:15 am
by chili
This looks like Bresenham. I won't do Bresenham when I teach straight line drawing (I like to teach something that is as close to y=mx+b as possible because it is the easiest for most to understand), but it is the way to go if you want the most efficient algorithm.

Still trying to figure out when I want to go over straight line. Will definitely do it though, not only for its own sake but also because linear math is essential to master for game dev.

Re: Draw Line

Posted: September 13th, 2017, 2:12 am
by Walka
It is Bresenham. I got it off rosettacode.com. I was trying to figure it out on my own but i could not for the life remember how to fix the problem when the line would not draw.

Re: Draw Line

Posted: September 13th, 2017, 2:19 am
by chili
There is another related algorithm for drawing thin line circles that doesn't need any sqrt or even floating point.

Re: Draw Line

Posted: September 13th, 2017, 2:28 am
by Walka
I got a quick question for you. I am trying to load my old projects in VS15 that I wrote in VS10. I am getting this error "LNK1104 cannot open file ' dxerr.lib' " any idea how to fix this?

Re: Draw Line

Posted: September 13th, 2017, 2:44 am
by chili
Go into the solution settings, linker settings, remove dxerr.lib from the list of libraries imported. It isn't actually needed.