Lines

[rossjrw]

Lines are a necessary visual feature for the minimum viable product.

The way I'm seeing it right now is that each letter declares a bunch of sites. A line is drawn from a given site that can connect to another site so long as they both match each other's conditions; otherwise, it just extends to the edge of the circle.

A site nominally consists of a point and a preferred angle, but it's actually not so simple as that. A site can be drawn on any letter at any valid angle, so the site will be more like this:

• The centre point of the letter
• The radius of the letter
• The range of angles for which the site's point can be placed on the letter
• The range of angles for which the site is valid on that point (just 90 deg initially)
• The angular range in which another site on this letter cannot appear

[rossjrw]

I want lines to avoid things, right?

There's going to be two kinds of lines, straight and curved. Curved lines (#5) are a way off, so I'm just thinking about straight lines for now.

A stright line running tangent to or even anywhere near another object in the drawing is going to look shit. It'd be nice to be able to adjust the angle to minimise this.

That's if I even want to be able to adjust the angle of straight lines. Maybe straight lines should just come as they are.

But shouldn't there be some possibility of a straight line connecting to another?

I will need to make sure that a letter that produces multiple straight lines never crosses over itself. Perhaps the angle of any line cannot be greater than the angle of the line to its left if any, nor lesser than the angle of the line to its right if any, or something like that.

It'll probably be easier to start with dots.