HOWTO draw circles, arcs and vector graphics in SDL?

Question

(I\'m using SDL2)

SDL is a relatively small library for \"low level access to audio, keyboard, mouse, joystick, and graphics hardware via OpenGL and Direct3D\" It\'s us

Answer 1

If you want to do a circle or ellipse without 3rd party libraries, include math.h and use the function below I wrote. It will draw aliased ellipse or circles very well. Tested on SDL 2.0.2 and works. It draws one quadrant arc, and mirrors the other arcs, reducing calls to cosf and sinf.

//draw one quadrant arc, and mirror the other 4 quadrants
void sdl_ellipse(SDL_Renderer* r, int x0, int y0, int radiusX, int radiusY)
{
    float pi  = 3.14159265358979323846264338327950288419716939937510;
    float pih = pi / 2.0; //half of pi

    //drew  28 lines with   4x4  circle with precision of 150 0ms
    //drew 132 lines with  25x14 circle with precision of 150 0ms
    //drew 152 lines with 100x50 circle with precision of 150 3ms
    const int prec = 27; // precision value; value of 1 will draw a diamond, 27 makes pretty smooth circles.
    float theta = 0;     // angle that will be increased each loop

    //starting point
    int x  = (float)radiusX * cos(theta);//start point
    int y  = (float)radiusY * sin(theta);//start point
    int x1 = x;
    int y1 = y;

    //repeat until theta >= 90;
    float step = pih/(float)prec; // amount to add to theta each time (degrees)
    for(theta=step;  theta <= pih;  theta+=step)//step through only a 90 arc (1 quadrant)
    {
        //get new point location
        x1 = (float)radiusX * cosf(theta) + 0.5; //new point (+.5 is a quick rounding method)
        y1 = (float)radiusY * sinf(theta) + 0.5; //new point (+.5 is a quick rounding method)

        //draw line from previous point to new point, ONLY if point incremented
        if( (x != x1) || (y != y1) )//only draw if coordinate changed
        {
            SDL_RenderDrawLine(r, x0 + x, y0 - y,    x0 + x1, y0 - y1 );//quadrant TR
            SDL_RenderDrawLine(r, x0 - x, y0 - y,    x0 - x1, y0 - y1 );//quadrant TL
            SDL_RenderDrawLine(r, x0 - x, y0 + y,    x0 - x1, y0 + y1 );//quadrant BL
            SDL_RenderDrawLine(r, x0 + x, y0 + y,    x0 + x1, y0 + y1 );//quadrant BR
        }
        //save previous points
        x = x1;//save new previous point
        y = y1;//save new previous point
    }
    //arc did not finish because of rounding, so finish the arc
    if(x!=0)
    {
        x=0;
        SDL_RenderDrawLine(r, x0 + x, y0 - y,    x0 + x1, y0 - y1 );//quadrant TR
        SDL_RenderDrawLine(r, x0 - x, y0 - y,    x0 - x1, y0 - y1 );//quadrant TL
        SDL_RenderDrawLine(r, x0 - x, y0 + y,    x0 - x1, y0 + y1 );//quadrant BL
        SDL_RenderDrawLine(r, x0 + x, y0 + y,    x0 + x1, y0 + y1 );//quadrant BR
    }
}