Introduction
This is a little toy project I did because we had an application that
required a number of simple images described as vectors. This was the editor I
created to allow me to create and modify these simple images. The output files
can be included as resources and used by my Polygon
Drawing Class. (Actually, the polygon class is not used in this application,
because I created it before I created the polygon class).
I thought it would provide an interesting example of programming techniques,
and in any case it makes my polygon class a bit more usable.
The idea is that there is a 100 �100 grid, with origin in the center at 0,0
and coordinates ranging �50, and all images are drawn within this grid. They
may be scaled later. There are controls for scaling and rotating the image.
The use is fairly obvious for the most part. The standard file menu allows
you to create, save, or open vector files. The vector is stored as a vertex
list. There are two arrow keys next to the image list that allow you to
rearrange the points.
The points are editable; clicking twice (not double-clicking) on a point
makes it directly editable. The effects will be seen when you hit Enter or
select out of the item.
There are four arrows that modify the list by adding or subtracting 1 from
the x or y axis to move the image left, right, up, or down.
You can type in a new point and click the Add button, and it will be added
following the current selection (if there is no selection, it is added at the
end of the list).
Clicking the mouse in the drawing will transfer the mouse coordinates to the
input box. Double-clicking the mouse in the drawing will also perform an Add
operation. What I do is click in the approximate areas I want, then clean it up
doing hand-editing. Nothing deep, but it greatly simplified the creation of a
number of scalable "icons" for a graphical representation of moving
objects.
Selecting a point in the point list will highlight that point in the drawing
with a small red circle. The Delete button deletes the currently selected point.
File | New deletes all the points.
Here's a little submarine icon I drew in about seven minutes. It is shown
rotated 20�. Note the small red circle at the bottom that represents the
highlighted point. I turned the grid off to get a clearer image.
The views expressed in these essays are those of the author, and
in no way represent, nor are they endorsed by, Microsoft.
Send mail to newcomer@flounder.com with questions or
comments about this web site.
Copyright � 2001 All Rights Reserved
